AUTOS STAY OFF ROADS IN THANE
THANE: Commuters faced a tough time in Thane on Thursday as auto rickshaws stayed off roads in support of a bandh call given by various city auto rickshaw unions against the recent actions taken by the civic administration.
An auto-rickshaw union in Thane declared a flash ‘bandh’ on Wednesday night to oppose the beating of one of their fellow drivers by the Thane Municipal Commissioner, his personal bodyguards and some policemen.
However, commuters were spared of harrowing trouble as other unions refused to take part in the strike. Passengers travelling to far away were slightly inconvenienced.
The Thane Municipal Transport had arranged for extra buses and due to the non-support of other auto-rikshaw unions, the bandh could not disturb the city’s routine system in a major way.
Thane Municipal Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal was seen confronting an autorickshaw driver and beating him in a video telecast by leading news channels. Jaiswal, however, denied any wrongdoing. “The video is wrong interpretation of the incident. I did it in selfdefence,” Jaiswal said.
He had initiated action against illegal vendors and auto-rickshaw drivers parking their vehicles illegally, thereby causing traffic jam in the station area. In one such action, Deputy Commissioner Sandeep Malvi was beaten up by auto-rickshaw men. Malvi was seriously injured in the attack. After the incident, Jaiswal had personally accompanied in the sanitisation work along the station road during which one person was beaten up by commissioner and his personal bodyguards. The video went viral and the auto-rickshaw drivers were furious. To express their fury, the NCP-led Auto-Rickshaw Action Committee declared the strike since midnight of Wednesday. Since the other bjp and shivsena led unions did not support the bandh , the strike was bearable.
The union had even arranged a protest march to the collector’s office. Ravi Rao, the leader of auto-rickshaw action committee said, “We have submitted a letter to the collector asking for transfer of municipal commissioner as he is starting this new method of harassing the poor rickshaw men and vendors.”
Director General of Police Satish Mathur said, “We have received several complaints about this incidence and if we find proper evidences, we will definitely look into the matter.” Mathur was in Thane to take part in an event of the Thane Police.
On Thursday, more commuters were seen in the city than normal due to the stirke. Kartik K, who lives in Bhandup and travels to Ghodbunder for his on his work, said, “We had no idea about the strike when we came to the station in the morning. The auto-rickshaws stand was only more crowded than usual. Today, we we had to wait for longer time.”