Sikkim cabs barred from Bagdogra airport pickups, tourists suffer

PRASHANT ACHARYA

SILIGURI,: Flyers including tourists landing at Bagdogra airport on Tuesday faced problems in finding a transport for Sikkim after local drivers from Bagdogra barred Sikkim cabs to ply in the airport parking and pick up passengers.

Taxis from Sikkim were allowed to drop the passengers but asked to leave the premises without carrying a single passenger from the airport. This was done to mark protest against alleged physical assault on two Bagdogra taxi drivers by Sikkim Police on Monday night in Gangtok.

The two alleged victims, Sauraj Rawat and Rakesh Das sustained injuries after the alleged police assault. Since Tuesday morning, the Bagdogra drivers in retaliation barred the Sikkim-number vehicles from picking up passengers and were also not allowed to ply in the parking area of the airport.

Susan Rai, a cab driver from Pelling, was also barred to pick-up passengers.

“This is not fair. If protest is against the police why we drivers had to face the consequences? We support Bengal drivers when they have trouble inside Sikkim and here they are misbehaving with us. We are the bread earners and have not harmed any drivers from Bengal,” said Rai.

Meanwhile, the alleged victims maintained that they were assaulted without a probable cause by Sikkim Police in a Gangtok locality. They said they had parked the vehicle on the roadside as there was no space in the parking lot at around 8:05 pm after dropping the passengers.

“A police officer came and asked me not to park the vehicle. After some discussions, police assaulted me and my friend in inhumane manner even after several requests,” alleged the victim.

Later Suraj and Rakesh were taken to STNM hospital and released after treatment.

Driver’s union representatives Sunil Gurung from Congress, Rajen Kumar from BJP, Dipak Ghosh from CPIM and Jay Gurung from Trinamool Congress left for Sikkim from Bagdogra after Sikkim police top brass called for an emergency meeting to resolve the issue.

Talks held

A late evening update informs that talks were conducted by the Gangtok SP between the taxi drivers associations of Siliguri and Bagdogra, TAAS and luxury taxis association at Gangtok.

Various ideas were shared to strengthen the communication between the West Bengal and Sikkim taxi driver associations in view of on-going tourist season. All possible help was assured and a WhatsApp group formed which included Bengal and Sikkim associations to cater to any immediate help between the two neighbouring States in terms of smooth passage of tourists, temporary parking facilities allocated to West Bengal taxis who comes to drop at Gangtok during evenings, it was informed.

Furthermore an enquiry is being initiated about the videos going round in social media regarding ill treatment of two West Bengal taxi drivers on Monday night by Sikkim Police. If any duty personnel are found guilty, full assurances were given to the victims that strong action will be initiated as per law.

The associations were satisfied by assurance given by the Gangtok SP and sought for more cooperation like this in future, sources informed.