Karol Bagh on boil, MCD stays away

TNN / Mar 30, 2006, 00:52 IST

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The MCD stayed away on Day One of the sealing drive claiming that it didn't get the required police force.

NEW DELHI: The shoppers were missing outside the well-known Zohra Emporium and the pocket-friendly Mega Mart on busy Arya Samaj Road on Wednesday.
Instead, one saw hundreds of angry, agitated and anxious traders who threatened to grow violent in case the MCD came to seal.
Unprepared for this kind of resistance - which was not unexpected given the fact that Karol Bagh is home to the traders' lobby - the MCD stayed away on Day One of the sealing drive, claiming that it didn't get the required police force.
MCD faced resistance from the traders in West Zone too and it could manage to carry out just four sealings from Ring Road-Punjabi Bagh to Manglapuri.

Shopkeepers of Rajouri Garden claimed that they had broken the seals later in the day and BJP leaders like MLA Harsharan Singh Balli, MCD's Leader of the Opposition Subhash Arya and councillor Onkar Singh Thapar joined in the protests. They were detained by the police for some time.
At Zohra Emporium, the shopkeepers kept vigil from 8.00 am to well after 3 pm. Naresh Kumar Bansal, who runs a shoe shop on Arya Samaj Road, warned that they won't let the sealing happen.

Other traders echoed this view complaining how the authorities had first allowed all these shops to come up and had now turned up to seal them. They wanted to know about mixed land use but were clueless about the status of their area.
As news spread that the MCD team was waiting at the police station, there was some slogan shouting. The crowd virtually stalled traffic and the cops had a tough time trying to clear the bottleneck.
Deputy Commissioner (Karol Bagh Zone) A K Singla claimed they had tried to get police force all day. "There are thousands of traders on Arya Samaj Road and we need a large number of police personnel, including those equipped with riot gear.
Even for tomorrow we have not been given any assurances by the police," said Singla.

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