Didi halts drive to evict hawkers, warns against cop-neta nexus

KOLKATA: Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee temporarily halted Thursday the ongoing anti-hawker and anti-encroachment drive from public spaces in Kolkata for a month. However, she issued a stern warning against politicians and police officers who she claimed encourage hawkers to encroach, take bribes from them, and then use bulldozers to evict them, reported.

Addressing a meeting with ministers, bureaucrats, police, and hawkers' union representatives at Nabanna, the state secretariat, Banerjee said she disapproves of the use of bulldozers and wants the one-month pause to be used for conducting surveys in hawking zones to identify alternatives and solutions. She warned that encroachments removed during the past week should not be allowed to return and called on police and politicians to curb their greed.

"I do not believe in first allowing encroachers and then using bulldozers. I want restrictions to be imposed from the beginning," Banerjee said, warning: "Politicians who incite hawkers will be arrested, regardless of their party affiliation, and police officers supporting them will either be arrested by their superiors or removed from their positions."

"The local mafia, the sand mafia, the land mafia are doing everything. Why should I take the blame? They are taking money with their right hand and giving it to BJP with their left hand," she alleged.