Kolkata Durga Puja Organisers Allege Police Trying to Curb Festivities

 Kolkata: In a rare instance, organizers of two prominent Durga Pujas in Kolkata have accused the city police of trying to curb their pujas on the pretext of crowd management to tackle the heavy footfall of visitors before the start of the festival from Sunday.

One of them even stopped visitors' entry to the mandap from Saturday evening. These two are Santosh Mitra Square Durga Puja committee at Lebutala Park and Mohammad Ali Park Youth Association on CR Avenue in the central part of the city.

Themed on Operation Sindoor in its 90th year, Santosh Mitra Square Durga Puja is patronized by BJP councillor at Kolkata Municipal Corporation Sajal Ghosh and was inaugurated by union home minister Amit Shah on September 26. It has attracted an unprecedented footfall since then.

On Saturday, Mr Ghosh alleged that the Kolkata Police served his puja committee a letter that he claimed was intended for a shutdown. The letter states, “Such activities, especially in a location that attracts massive footfall, have resulted in serious issues of noise pollution and crowd stagnation, thereby posing a threat to smooth movement and public safety in the area.”

Referring to this, Mr Ghosh argued, “Police are trying to shut down the puja by staging a mishap and putting the blame on the organisers. Visitors are forced to walk on the narrow lanes instead of the big ones.”

Kolkata Police Commissioner Manoj Verma however pointed out that huge crowd in a narrow space creates concerns about public safety, which also needs to be ensured. The other puja is of Mohammad Ali Park Youth Association of 57 years. It was themed on Shakti Sagar, and opened by state minister Shashi Panja on September 25.

The puja committee blamed the cops for changing the visitors' queue to the pandal at the eleventh hour. It later switched off the lights and barred the entry of pandal hoppers from 8 pm on Saturday in protest. A puja committee member said that a decision of closure was taken as the visitors’ flow to the mandap was diverted by the police to a different lane unlike previous years.