A dawn-to-dusk Baleswar Bandh call given by a joint forum in protest against deteriorating law and order situation
of the district evoked total response on Thursday.
It was peaceful without any incident although the agitators picketed the road by burning tyres at certain places. The call given by the Civil Society, Baleswar and the Bar Association was supported by most of the political parties, except the BJD.
The Congress, BJP, Left parties, trade unions and traders associations and various other organisations including, senior citizen, cultural, civil and voluntary organisations supported the agitation.
Due to the impact of the agitation, all the shops and business establishments had downed their shutters. Barring a few roadside small-time shops, all were closed. The city wore a deserted look. All the vehicles including trucks and buses were off the roads. The banks and financial institutions were closed.
The ATM kiosks and fuel outlets too were seen closed, while the Government offices although were open yet they couldn’t transact any business. The defence establishments were too affected due to the agitation. The town witnessed hardly any traffic except two wheelers. However, the rail services were spared by the agitators.
Notably, various sections of the society had alleged that the police administration had utterly failed to contain the menace of deteriorating law and order situation in the district headquarters town. Murder, loot, snatching, house breaking theft, drug trafficking, ATM loot and other crimes had become the order of the day. The police failed to curb the crimes due to inefficiency.
Despite appealing to the police head of the district no improvement was noticed, they alleged. The district BJP unit alleged the law and order situation had deteriorated after the Sadar seat earlier with BJP went to the BJD following a by-election. Although Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had assured to look into all-round development of Baleswar personally before the by-poll, yet it proved hollow, the BJP workers alleged.