By Geeta Desai
Mumbai Mirror, January 26, 2010 at 11:03:45 AM

Visually-challenged protestors blocked the road outside BMC headquarters, in
front of Azad Maidan, for almost two hours on Monday, to press for their
demands of jobs in government and semi-government organisations.

The protestors, who were on a hunger strike for the past four days at Azad
Maidan, were upset that there was no response from the government, even
after they had sent many letters to Mantralaya and the civic body.

The protestors took the police by surprise when they suddenly decided to
occupy the road, thus blocking the flow of traffic. Given that they were
visually impaired, the policemen on duty just did not know how to react.

After nearly two hours of traffic coming to a complete standstill, DCP (Zone
I) Vishwas Nagre-Patil (l) was able to convince the group of
visually-challenged protestors right

The police then quickly called up their seniors, desperately seeking their
advice to deal with the situation.

On being told of the issue, every senior officer from the nearby Azad Maidan
Police Station rushed to the scene. They did their best to reason with the
agitators, urging them to stop blocking the road and return to the ground.

The group, however, refused to budge.

Vishwas Nangre-Patil, DCP (Zone I) was then contacted. He, in turn, tried to
pacify the crowd and coaxed them to move away from the road.

This went on for over an hour-and-a-half, before Nangre-Patil told the
protestors he would call up some ministers. The protestors, however,
insisted on none less than the chief minister himself coming to meet them.

Eventually, the DCP did call the CM and briefed him about the situation. The
CM then asked him to inform the protestors that they could meet him on
January 27, and he would hear them out.

No sooner did Nangre-Patil give them an assurance that the meeting would
happen, the group moved back to Azad Maidan, much to the relief of the
police and motorists alike

Reproduced from http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/2/20100126201001271103457617e7d1142/Police-taken-by-surprise-as-visually-impaired-block-road.html