Kurmi protests continue to rock parts of Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): Protests by Kurmi community members in various districts of West Bengal were unabated on Saturday, the fifth consecutive day of their stir for ST status, as they blocked railway tracks and a stretch of National Highway-6, officials said.
Train services in a few divisions of South Eastern Railway (SER) were affected as the agitators squatted on the tracks, leading to cancellation, short-termination and diversion of several trains, they said.
Around 250 mail/express and passenger trains have been cancelled since Tuesday, the officials said.
The protesters also blocked a portion of NH-6 in Khemasuli in Paschim Medinipur district, leaving hundreds of goods carriers and buses stranded, and leading to long traffic snarls.
During the day, district administrations of Paschim Medinipur, Jhargram and Purulia held meetings with Kurmi community leaders to persuade them to withdraw the ongoing agitation, but the talks did not bear fruit, the officials said.
Meanwhile, Purulia administration sources claimed that the protests were withdrawn in the district following the talks, but the Kurmis continued with their stir in Paschim Medinipur and Jhargram.
The rail blockade at Khemasuli station in Paschim Medinipur is still underway, and so is the agitation on National Highway-6, Kurmi Samaj state working committee member Tapas Mahto told PTI.
Hopefully, we will withdraw the ongoing protests. But, no final decision has been taken as of now, he said.
Mahto, however, said the road blockade on State Highway-5 in Jhargram's Lodhasuli was lifted later in the day.
The Kurmis, demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the community and inclusion of the Kurmali language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, launched the agitation at various railway stations in West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand at 4 am on Tuesday.
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Odisha: Taxi driver arrested for looting visitors from Bengaluru
Jajpur (Odisha), Oct 17: A taxi driver was arrested in Odisha's Jajpur district on Thursday for allegedly looting two people from Bengaluru of their gold and diamond jewellery and Rs 2,000 in cash, police said.
The arrested taxi driver has been identified as Prakash Chandra Barala, a resident of Kalapathar area in Khurda district.
The passengers, Tushar Priyadarshi and his wife, had come from Bengaluru and had hired a taxi in Bhubaneswar to visit Joda in Keonjhar district on Wednesday.
When the taxi reached near Panikoili on NH-16 on Wednesday night, Tushar asked the driver to stop the vehicle near a hotel for dinner.
After the couple returned to the vehicle post-dinner and left the hotel, they found their gold jewellery including a chain, three pairs of earrings, a diamond ring and Rs 2,000 in cash missing from their bag, a police officer said.
Priyadarshi asked the driver to take them back to the hotel, where they narrated the ordeal to the hotel owner.
As the driver saw the owner checking the footage of a CCTV camera installed in front of the hotel, he dumped the luggage of the passengers and sped away with the vehicle towards Chandikhole on NH-16, the officer said.
"We have arrested the driver and registered a case under sections of BNS and seized his taxi," Panikoili police station inspector-in-charge Ranjan Kumar Pradhan said.
