Jamshedpur, July 22: Seeing no fresh incident of violence and situation getting under control, administration on Wednesday relaxed curfew for four hours from 1 pm to 5 pm in Jamshedpur barring Mango Police Station area, Ulidih PS, Azadnagar PS and MGM Police.
“We have extended four hours of relaxation in the curfew from 1 p.m to 5 p.m in Jamshedpur, but not in the affected police station areas of Mango, Azadnagar, Olidih and MGM,” Deputy Commissioner Amitabh Kaushal said.
Bistupur market witnessed hectic activities on Wednesday afternoon as frenzied people rushed to refuel their stocks of essential commodities during the four-hour curfew relaxation.
As soon as the people got the information about the curfew relaxation they got out of their homes to but daily use items and food items like bread, milk, eggs and vegetables.
Anand Gupta, resident of Ramdas Bhatta in Bistupur who came to buy vegetables in Bistupur market said “four hour relaxation has provided us a sigh of relief as since morning we needed milk. The vegetable vendors are heavily charging at their will taking advantage of the situation”.
Arshad Ayub of Dhatkidih said that all vegetables are priced at Rs 60 per kg be it tomatoes, cucumber or any other.
“The prices of vegetables have doubled. We have to buy, no matter how much we have to shell out to fight the hunger pangs,” said Suresh Kumar, Ranikudar resident. “We understand the traders’ difficulties. They had to face all odds to come in the Steel city from far off places without curfew passes,” he said.
ADG SS Pradhan said that rumors have led Jamshedpur to such a turbulent situation. He appealed the people of the city to ignore such rumors and get direct information from Police Control Room were DSP level officers are stationed 24 hours.
After the promptitude of the administration the situation has been under full control. The worst-affected Mango, Olidih, Azadnagar and MGM police station areas continued to witness heavy deployment of ITBP, CRPF and Jharkhand police personnel, who did a flag march on Tuesday and set up armed pickets in streets and alleys.
“Curfew will be in force in the entire city from 5pm till further orders. We’re reviewing the situation every hour,” Jamshedpur deputy commissioner Amitabh Kaushal said.
Police said no untoward incident was reported on Wednesday in the city which looked like a motionless ghost town because of the curfew.