Chandigarh: Schoolchildren stranded, parents walking through rain and waterlogged streets, and ambulances taking detours — residents, patients and around 4,500 students bore the brunt of a massive mobilisation by Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Chandigarh’s Sector 32 on Monday.With SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal appearing before the Punjab Police SIT probing the Behbal Kalan firing case at the Punjab Police Officers’ Institute (PPOI), thousands of party workers descended upon the sector that houses three schools and the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), a primary referral medical facility for the region.Chandigarh SSP Kanwardeep Kaur said permission had not been granted for the protest and prohibitory orders under Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS) had been imposed. “The organisers were informed in writing not to gather,” she said.However, SAD did not relent, and the fallout was chaotic.Residents struggled to travel even a kilometre to the market, while schools called parents early to pick up their wards. Kanika Mahajan, the mother of a Class XII student at St Anne’s Convent School, was among hundreds of parents who first had to find a place to park on the Sector 32-46 dividing road and then walk nearly a kilometre in the rain to reach her son. “Why even have a protest near a hospital? Police could have at least informed the school so it could have declared a holiday,” she said.Kanika was better off than many.Many children were left asking journalists and shopkeepers for their phones to inform their parents where to pick them up. With police barricading the main 1km stretch of Sectors 32C and 32D, vehicles could not reach the gates of St Anne’s Convent School and the local govt school.An ambulance that entered the Sector 32C-D dividing road had to take a longer detour to GMCH as the road was inaccessible in front of GGDGSD College, which is next to PPOI. Sanju, an ambulance driver at GMCH, said emergency vehicles passing through the affected area were delayed by 10-15 minutes. “Ironically, the worst-hit vehicles were the ones coming from Punjab,” he said.Harmeet Singh, a resident of Sector 32D, complained to the police after hearing the commotion outside his house. “Is this even legal? There was a motor rally of sorts when Sukhbir was leaving,” he said.Riders delivering groceries also had a tough time.While Chandigarh Police began barricading the sector as early as 1am, SAD workers started arriving by 9am. Within an hour, the area had descended into chaos.SAD spokesperson and former minister Daljit Singh Cheema said it was not a planned protest. “Senior leadership and party workers came on their own to express solidarity with the party president. Even I had a tough time reaching the venue. We regret the inconvenience caused to the public, but the venue was not selected by us,” he said.He instead blamed the SIT. “They should have chosen some other venue in Punjab, preferably an open space. Or they could at least have chosen the Gazetted Officers’ Mess in Sector 1, where parking space is available,” he said.It was only after the SIT allowed Sukhbir to leave around 1.30pm that Akali workers began dispersing. The area took another hour to return to normal.
