Sporadic violence during Bihar bandh

patna: barring sporadic incidents of violence and disruption in the movement of trains at various places, the nda-sponsored bihar bandh passed off peacefully on tuesday. the 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 hardinge park.no one was injured in the firing. according to ig (operations) 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 a 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. however, nda supporters squatted on railway tracks at some places and disrupted the movement of trains for a few hours. a major disruption in rail traffic was reported from the shiho station (in muzaffarpur) where the train movement could be normalised at 2 p.m. after police intervention. samata mla bhagwan singh was arrested along with other bandh supporters at ara for trying to obstruct rail and road traffic. 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.