Walkers, tourists bear the brunt

- Police imposes Section 144 across the city
- Ban the entry of vehicles and people to the beach road in view of the protests
- Tourists, specially elderly persons lodged in beach road hotels had a tough time in returning back to their rooms

Visakhapatnam: More than the protestors, it was the tourists from outside and the morning walkers who cursed the police for blocking the entry to the entire beach road from the morning hours of Thursday.

The police clamped Section 144 across the city and banned the entry of vehicles and people to the beach road in view of the protests planned by youth and various political parties demanding Special Category Status.

Around 5,000 morning walkers take to the beach road from 5 am to 8 am for which the police banned entry of vehicles years ago. But no one was allowed between Park Hotel Junction and Coast Battery in connection with the rally.

Even local people, though asked to show any previous ID cards for use of vehicles, were also subjected to harassment. “Youth are taking out a peaceful rally why should the senior citizens like me should be stopped from entering the beach road. I am walking in this stretch since 30 years and I have the habit of sitting on the beach for a while and meet my colleagues. But for the first time I am missing my friends,’’ said P Suribabu, a former manager of a corporate show company.

His close friend for years N Babu Rao, said: “Even Tsunami could not stop us, but the Andhra Pradesh police today stopped us.’’ Tourists from outside, specially elderly persons lodged in beach road hotels had a tough time in returning back to their rooms.

Not only tourists, but also the residents at the beach road had faced tough time to visit the nearby the shops and others places as the police didn’t allow most of them citing various reasons. nThe foreign tourists were seen walking on the beach road with luggage to reach Waltair and other places to get a taxi to go either railway station or airport. Nearly 1,000 police personnel have been deployed on the beach road creating lot of inconvenience to residents at the beach.

“Though I have produced identify card to go on my bike, the police didn’t allow me citing that beach road was closed for vehicles. After nearly 30 minutes of argument, they allowed my vehicle, said GV Prasad, who works in a private engineering college.

Defending deployment, Commissioner of Police T Yoganand said that they have imposed restrictions prevent unlawful assembling and anti-social elements joining the agitators. The restrictions might have caused some inconvenience to people, the Commissioner said, but the people understood the situation.