Kolkata streets turn into war zone as violence shrouds BJP's protest march
Howrah, Sep 13: Roads around the 19th century iconic Howrah Station resembled a battleground on Tuesday with brickbats aimed at police personnel flying thick and fast, and drenched protesters hit by water cannons limping to the safety of nearby alleyways and shops.
BJP agitators brought in by special trains for a protest march to the Bengal secretariat turned violent when they found roads leading to the state's seat of power barricaded by riot police.
Dilip Biswas, 34, who had boarded one of the special trains to come to the metropolis from Andal, said, I never realised the protest march would turn into such a fierce combat... The police were relentless, while those in the crowd besides me were equally violent.
I don't know who started throwing stones at the police, but after two officers went down like nine pins, they started firing water cannons, burst tear gas shells and lathicharged us.
The protesters also hurled glass bottles at police personnel, while some of them were seen lifting tree logs to chase security forces away.
Several people on both sides were reportedly injured in the melee.
I had come here to buy electrical goods for my shop in Serampore without knowing that protests here would become so violent... My pocket has been picked, my eyes are stinging due to tear gas and I have somehow managed to escape being lathicharged. I want to forget this day and just get back home, said Kaushik Ghosh in a sombre tone.
Meanwhile, a number of BJP leaders, who took part in the rally, were detained by police along with their supporters.
BJP state president Sukanta Majumdar, party leader Agnimitra Paul and hundreds of activists staged a sit-in at Howrah Maidan, after police stopped them from proceeding towards Nabanna' (state secretariat).
The saffron camp has been taking out rallies across West Bengal for the past couple of days, asking party workers to assemble outside the secretariat to protest against the TMC regime's alleged corrupt practices.
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Over 17,000 people went missing in Delhi in 2024: NCRB
New Delhi (PTI): A total of 23,058 people, comprising 9,482 men and 13,576 women, were reported missing in Delhi in 2024, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Of the total, 5,491 were children below the age of 18 — 1,571 boys, 3,920 girls.
The city recorded 17,567 fresh adult missing persons cases in 2024, comprising 7,911 men and 9,656 women.
According to the NCRB data, released on Wednesday, 14,637 men, 18,238 women and six transgender persons were still missing from previous years.
At the latest count, in 2024, Delhi had a total of 55,939 missing persons cases — 24,119 men, 31,814 women and six transgender persons.
In 2024, police traced or collected 28,392 missing persons, including 12,182 men, 16,208 women and two transgender persons.
Only half of the men and half of the women who went missing could be traced.
A total of 27,547 missing persons – 11,937 men, 15,606 women, four transgender persons — were yet to be untraced by the end of the year, the data showed.
The data also revealed that 5,352 children from previous years remained untraced at the beginning of 2024.
The number of still missing boys was 1,621, and the number of missing girls was 3,729. Two transgender children were yet to be found.
After adding the pending cases from previous years, the total number of missing children cases handled in 2024 rose to 10,843.
The police traced or recovered 6,762 missing children — 2,030 boys, 4,732 girls.
The recovery rate stood at 63.6 per cent for boys and 61.9 per cent for girls, while no transgender child was traced.
By the end of 2024, a total of 4,081 children remained untraced, 1,162 of them boys, 2,917 girls, and two transgender children.
