Kumar Rajiv Nayan
Ara: The Ara bandh called by Hindustani Awaam Morcha (HAM) and supported by the NDA in protest against murder of a local businessman Sanjay Prasad alias Munna Sai on Saturday morning evoked mixed response here on Sunday. Schools and colleges were closed due to Sunday but the petrol pumps, cinema halls and other business establishments remained open.
The bandh supporters took out a procession that passed through the main thoroughfares of the town and forced the businessmen and traders to down their shutters. Led by Danish Rizwan, state spokesperson HAM, and Rajendra Tiwari, an NDA leader, the bandh supporters reached Ara railway station and stopped Buxar-Fatuha passenger by boarding the rail engine and squatting on the railway track for about an hour raising slogans against the state government and CM Nitish Kumar for poor law and order. As a result, a number of long distance trains remained stranded at different railway stations between Danapur and Mughalsarai under Danapur rail division of East Central Railways (ECR). Passengers especially women and children were a harried lot as they had to go without water for hours.
The bandh supporters led by Sanjay Singh Tiger, former MLA from Sandesh in Bhojpur district, blocked Tribhiani Kothi roundabout and paralyzed movement of vehicles. They also burnt tyres on the road and raised slogans against the state government and the district administration. A section of bandh supporters, friends of Munna Sai and businessmen staged a dharana near Khadi Bhandar about 100 metre from the Town Police Station, Ara.
Sanjay Singh Tiger and Danish Rizwan said that law and order situation had reached at its nadir and no one was safe in this jungle raj 2. They said that the murder of Sanjay Prasad alias Munna Sai in the morning on Saturday and tension at viilage Rani Sagar under Shahpur during Eid were a glaring example of this.