Sporadic violence during NDA-sponsored `Bihar bandh'

patna: barring sporadic incidents of violence and disruption in the movement of trains at various places, the national democratic alliance (nda)-sponsored `bihar bandh' passed off peacefully on tuesday. the bandh call was given to protest against the "all-round failure" of the rabri devi government. in patna, the police resorted to two rounds of firing in the air to disperse a group of bandh supporters armed with lathis and iron rods trying to stop the movement of vehicles near the hardinge park.no one was injured in the police firing. according to ig (operation) neelmani, in all, 3,280 bandh supporters, including three mps -- raghunath jha, ramjivan singh and sanjay paswan -- and over two dozen legislators of the parties constituting the nda, were picked up by the police from different parts of the state. among the arrested legislators were bjp state unit president nand kishore yadav, leader of the opposition in the state assembly sushil kumar modi and samata leader p k sinha. in patna alone, 645 agitators were arrested. earlier, the state government had sounded red alert in bihar with special emphasis on the railways as it apprehended large-scale violence by bandh supporters. dgp r r prasad said no major incident of violence was reported from any part of the state during the bandh. however, bandh supporters at some places, including ara, buxar, turki (muzaffarpur), madhubani town, supaul, pipra and chakia (both in east champaran), squatted on the railway tracks and disrupted the movement of trains for a few hours. a major disruption in the railway traffic was reported from the shiho station (in muzaffarpur) where the train movement could be normalised at 2 pm after the police intervention. samata party mla bhagwan singh was arrested along with other bandh supporters at ara for trying to obstruct the railway and road traffic. according to a report from warsaliganj, 15 bandh supporters received injuries when the police resorted to lathicharge on them at warsaliganj (nawada district). the bandh hit the normal life as the vehicular traffic was paralysed all over the state. office-goers and commuters had to face a lot of problem as only a small number of tempos and rickshaws plied on the roads of patna. shopkeepers on the main thoroughfares kept their shutters down. in view the bandh call, many schools were closed for the day in patna. modi said the people of the state have lost faith in the rabri government. claiming the bandh to be a big success, he said the people have expressed their solidarity with the bandh supporters agitating against the massacre of dalits at mataurha and the police firing on flood victims at aurai. in darbhanga district, the response to the bandh was "unprecedented", something never seen in the last 20 years, he added. other nda leaders said the "overwhelming response" to their bandh call has proved beyond doubt that the people of the state are fed up with the "corrupt, ineffective and incompetent laloo-rabri regime". the bjp state unit president charged the police with resorting to lathicharge on the bandh supporters "demonstrating peacefully" at buxar. samata party state office secretary sanjay kumar sinha said about 20 party workers sustained injuries in the police lathicharge at dumraon. incidentally, this was the second joint `bihar bandh' call given by the nda in protest against the "deteriorating" law and order situation, "discrimination" in the distribution of flood relief and other "failures" of the state government. before this, the nda had jointly called for a `bihar bandh' in 1999 to protest against the senari massacre after which president's rule was imposed in bihar for a brief period.