Patna:
Life in Bihar seems to have been crippled after the Left parties along with the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Congress and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) called for a state-wide
bandh today.
RJD leader Lalu Prasad Yadav has been held in the capital Patna with his party workers.
"Several long route trains as well as passenger trains were stopped by bandh supporters and the road traffic was badly hit across the state," a police official said.
Trains were forcibly stopped at major railway stations like Patna, Gaya, Jehanabad and Darbhanga, police said.
According to East Central Railway zone officials in Hajipur, about 20 km from here, thousands of passengers were stranded at various railway stations.
Workers of opposition parties blocked railway tracks in Nalanda, Gaya, Jehanabad, Darbhanga, Hajipur, Bhagalpur and Saharsa districts, disrupting train services, an official said.
Besides, traffic was disrupted on national and state highways at various places. In Patna, busy roads like Ashok Rajpath, Exhibition Road, Bailey Road and Fraser Road were blocked by the shutdown supporters, police said.
All private schools and colleges in the city remained closed in view of the strike.
The call for the bandh was taken to protest against the police firing in Madhubani on Friday in which two persons were killed. 12 persons, including a DSP were also injured that day and dozens of vehicles torched by stone- pelting students demanding CBI probe into the mysterious disappearance of a student.
The town had been simmering since a headless body was found almost a fortnight ago. The family members of a missing youth, Prashant Kumar, claimed that the body was his and demanded that it be handed over to them -- but the police remained unrelenting.
Following that incident, the Inspector General (IG) of the Darbhanga zone, the District Magistrate and the Superintendent of Police (SP) were transferred.
Today, although Madhubani town, the epicentre of the violence remained peaceful, several small other parts of the state witnessed protests, mainly against the police.
(With agency inputs)