Protesters hold ‘funeral’ march against tree cutting for Metro 3

Mumbai: The supporters and members of the Save Trees group and residents of South Mumbai carried out a silent prayer march on Friday evening in south Mumbai, from YB Chavan centre to Eros theatre at Churchgate, protesting against cutting of trees for Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro line-3. Traffic jam was witnessed in Churchgate after the police intervened.

The silent march, which began at around 4.30pm on Friday, was carried out from YB Chavan centre to end at Eros theatre in Churchgate. Though the march went on smooth and was approaching towards its end, the officials from Marine Drive police station intervened and tried to stop the supporters and members. The march, which supposed to end in around 30 minutes, took an hour. The police personnel, which were deployed on the JRD Tata road, did not allow the protesters to move forward.

The tussle between the police and the protesters carried on for more than 20 minutes.

The police tried to break the bier on which the protesters had place a branch of the tree. The police detained protesters. After the march came to an end, the police took away the bier.

However, the police took the protesters to Marine Drive police station. One of the head constables, who played the key role in stopping the supporters of Save Trees group said, “We received information about this march, and we were not informed about it by the protesters. This was the reason that we had to stop them. If we had been informed about it, we would have made arrangements and even had a barricaded the area. Since they failed to inform us, we had to stop them.”

“We were on the silent march but it got big after the police interrupted. Our names were taken down after which we released by 6pm as they offered us tea,” said a Zoru Bathena.