Rule flout starts 48 hours before Diwali night, south Kolkata much noisier than north so far

KOLKATA: The night of Dhanteras on Friday signalled the initial warning. The night of Chhoti Diwali only heightened the anxiety of this Diwali turning one of the noisiest after some years of relative calm.
Forty eight hours before Diwali, the city has begun reporting rampant bursting of crackers - way above the permitted 125dB - from different pockets of the city, mostly from south Kolkata and the added areas.The problem points included some prominent residential colonies like Ballygunge Circular Road, Sarat Bose Road, Lake and Dhakuria along with east Behala and East Jadavpur.

A couple of complaints of illegal crackers being burst were reported from the slum areas of Sinthee and Cossipore. Complaints have come from Sapoorjee and Baguiati under Bidhannagar City Police as well.
According to activists, the south-north divide seems acute so far this year. "Violations in the south are far more than in the north," said a spokesperson from a forum of NGOs. "This year, I am hearing the crackers go off two days prior to Dhanteras. It all starts post 8pm and on Friday, this continued till 1am. We have a hospital near our premises. I just keep wondering why this gets repeated year after year," said Prasun Chatterjee, a resident of Golpark.
That illegal crackers are freely entering the city is clear from the stats shared by Lalbazar. "At a naka near Natunhat under Sarsuna police station, we have seized over 180kg of banned crackers in the past week. Over 80% of them had fake QR codes on them," said a senior cop.
The cops claim that their job has been made difficult trying to distinguish green crackers from the fake one. "We need a better way to check genuine green crackers as many of my officers are finding it a very time-consuming exercise to use the NEERI app. At several points, the app is hanging," said a cop.
According to joint CP (crime & organization) Syed Waquar Raza, the recoveries have now crossed 3,000kgs. "On Friday alone, we lodged 15 FIRs, arrested 20 and seized 962kg of banned firecrackers. On Saturday, we came across forged NEERI QR codes yet again. Around 110kg of banned firecrackers has been seized from a shop in New Market. Two persons - Suraj Keshri (36) and Nikhil Shaw (23) - have been arrested in this regard," said Raza. Across the city, 12 persons were hauled up for bursting illegal crackers and fined a minimum of Rs 1,000.
Kolkata Police has now adopted a three-pronged strategy since Saturday afternoon in its attempt to try and ensure citizens burst only green crackers. As a first step, local police are trying to attend to local distress calls. Secondly, police are carrying out special raids - mostly in plainclothes - across the city. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, cops are stopping every vehicle at special nakas and checking whether they were carrying firecrackers.
"When we were trying to seize illegal sprinklers, we were challenged by those who bought them. They went on claiming that since these emit no sound, they should be seen as green crackers. We had to literally explain to them what a green cracker is all about and how to identify them," said a cop on duty at the Tollygunge Phari naka.
On Saturday, the all-night effort saw them set up 43 nakas and pickets and a 400-member strong police team launched special operations to seize illegal firecrackers.