Bengaluru comes to halt because of the fear factor

BENGALURU: Barring incidents of effigy burning and activists forcing shops to down their shutters, the dawn-to-dusk bandh in Bengaluru on Saturday was peaceful and total. Autorickshaws, BMTC and KSRTC buses, and cabs affiliated to KSTDC and private aggregators like Ola, TaxiForSure and Uber stayed off the roads till 4pm. The BMTC resumed its operations at 3pm.
Across the city, establishments shut shop out of fear of vandals. Localities where autorickshaws plied and shops opened in the morning presented a desolate picture in the afternoon. Vehicles of the BMTC and other public-transport operators didn’t venture out for the same reason.
“Why take the risk for a few hours? It is better to shut down than face the wrath of anti-social elements. There is no doubt that we support the bandh, but there is no need to shut shop,’’ said a merchant.
The bandh had been called by pro-Kannada organizations seeking to expedite the construction of the Mekedatu balancing reservoir across the Cauvery river near Ramanagaram district and protesting Tamil Nadu’s opposition to it. The project is expected to supply drinking water to Bengaluru and neighbouring districts. While the bandh was total in the Cauvery basin region, it had no impact in northern Karnataka and the coastal region.
Cab operator TaxiForSure sent out messages to its customers on Friday saying the services will not be available. However, airport taxis operated all through the day with Meru and KSTDC running their services almost fully. Meru deployed 3,500 taxis for airport and inter-city commute on Saturday.
While government offices showed zero attendance, some private firms asked their staffers to come before 7am and leave after 5pm. They provided pick and drop services to their employees.
There were no reports of people missing flights because most outbound flyers had already travelled to the airport before 6am.
The South Western Railway reported normal services at all railway stations in the Bengaluru division. SK Agarwal, divisional railway manager of Bengaluru division of railways, said, “We had deployed additional RPF forces in the trains going towards nearby districts as a precautionary measure. But there was no stoppage of trains.’’
City police commissioner M N Reddi said to avoid any untoward incident, police were deployed across the city and directed to do regular patrolling. “I had met and directed all the senior police officers, above the rank of inspector and ACPs on what to do. We were determined to run a quality show and presence of police all over the city stopped miscreants from creating social disturbance and damage to public property,” he said. The rowdy and anti-social elements were released on Saturday evening.
Malls, hotels, eateries, markets remains shut through the day but opened by evening. While amusement parks remained shut throughout the day, theatres resumed business with their 4pm shows. Chandrashekar Hebbar, president of Bengaluru Hotels Association, said all hotels and eateries in the city were shut till 6pm.