M A I N   N E W S

Domestic flights grounded
Tribune News Service

Mumbai, September 29
The one-day general strike called by Left unions crippled the functioning at Mumbai airport with all the airlines cancelling most of their flights.

Indian Airlines, Jet, Sahara, Air Deccan, Kingfisher and SpiceJet were among the airlines which cancelled or combined their flights from Mumbai.

Unlike the rest of the country, airport workers struck work in Mumbai only between 7 am to 7 pm in order to prevent inconvenience to international air passengers. International flights landing till the early hours today did not experience any delay.

However, domestic airlines operating later in the day had to contend with total disruption in services, as nearly 90 per cent of the employees belonging to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) went off work.

Many flights in the first few hours of the strike took off as per schedule, but the situation began to get worse as the day wore off.

Though personnel roped in from the airforce and the navy helped matters, passenger and cargo handling took a hit. Most of the passengers cancelled their tickets in the past two day. Cargo companies also rescheduled movement of goods.

The Air Traffic Control, however, functioned normally.

Bandh total in Bengal
Subhrangshu Gupta

Kolkata, September 29
The bandh in Bengal was total and without any untoward incident.

But most of the tea gardens in the Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri-Duars areas, controlled by INTUC, remained open today and the attendance there was normal. The Hoarah-Burnpur factory near Howrah town was also open and over 90 per cent workers attended duty.

The Chief Minister came to Writers Buildings around 12 noon but his wife, Ms Mira, was stopped on Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road near Park Circus while coming to BBD Bag in their family car. Several protesters, waiting near the road, gheraoed her car and heckled her for taking out the car in the street. Some of them also tried to deflate the tyres of the car. However, she was allowed to leave after disclosing her identity to the strikers.

Union Minister, Priya Das Mushi, who was returning to the city from Raiganj in north Bengal in his official car, was gheraoed on the highway near Howrah. The state Minister for Fire Services, Mr Pratip Chatterjee who was going to Writers Buildings, rescued Mr Das Munshi.

However, a long-distance bus, coming from north Bengal to Kolkata, was stopped there and the two ministers failed to persuade the strikers to let the bus proceed.

The Chief Minister got annoyed when he saw several protesters blocking roads and creating problems for the non-strikers and other office-goers.

At the Park street-Russell street crossing, the Chief Minister stopped his vehicle and walked down to the strikers and rebuked them for blocking the road.