Maoist strike affects marriages in Jharkhand

RANCHI - The three-day Maoist strike in Jharkhand has played spoilsport with hundreds of marriages that were scheduled Sunday and Monday.

The banned Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) called a three-day strike in four states — Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal — to protest the proposed government offensive against them.

It being a marriage season in Bihar and Jharkhand, many weddings were scheduled Feb 7-8. However, the Maoists’ strike forced several trains to be either cancelled or diverted due to security concerns.

In Jharkhand alone, seven trains were cancelled and routes of six trains changed to avoid endangering the passenegers. More than 3,000 buses plying in the state also were stranded at various towns.

At many places, weddings were postponed while at many other places relatives could not reach the wedding venue.

Santosh Agrawal of Palamau district had fixed the marriage of his son Gautam with a girl in Uttar Pradesh. The wedding, scheduled Tuesday, was postponed as the bride’s family refused to travel to Jharkhand owing to security concerns.

In another case, Ganesh Mishra had to go Bihar from Jamshedpur to attend the wedding of his nephew Monday. However, he could not leave the city due to the strike.

Top CPI-Maoist leader Kishanji in his statement to a local newspaper said: “If Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren attends union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s meeting with the chief ministers of the four states in Kolkata Tuesday, the door of dialogue would be closed forever.”