New Delhi: For a fifth day in a row, boom box-laden trucks blared deafening music along city roads, besides causing traffic jams and gridlocking key junctions on Tuesday. Even as Kanwariyas sat atop music systems on trucks in the middle of main carriageways of roads, blaring music—ignoring lanes earmarked for them—police were helpless to take action. Kanwariyas near Kashmere Gate on Tuesday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

“I have started dreading this time of the year. The noise is harrowing, and I have complained to the police about it so many times, but they don’t do anything. Instead, they tell me that it’s only a matter of a few days. The sound on the boom box can be heard in my house at even 1am, but no one stops them,” said Rachna Arora, 61, a resident of Rajouri Garden.

A police officer, on the condition of anonymity, said that they can “only request” Kanwariyas to stop the loud music and “cannot take any other action”.

HT reached out to district deputy commissioners of police, Abhishek Dhania (east), Raja Banthia (north), Ashish Mishra (north east), Vichitra Veer (west), and Ankit Chauhan (south)—which receive the highest Kanwariya footfall—for comment on the boom box issue and if any action was taken, but they all declined comment..

“Thousands of police officials are deployed across the city to manage law and order and traffic during this period. We have received nearly 250 complaints so far, and we have attended to all of them. We are trying to ensure that people do not face any problems. Wherever people complain of loud noise, we are making them lower the volume,” the officer cited above said.

Meanwhile, motorists suffered during the morning rush hour as the Kanwariya movement, alongside a heavy spell of rainfall, proved to be a double whammy. Hours-long jams were reported on NH 48, Outer Ring Road, Ring Road, Kalindi Kunj, Shahdara, Tis Hazari, and Kashmere Gate, among other areas.

“I was on the way to take a cab to my office in Gurugram, but the traffic to my pick-up point was massive because of the movement of Kanwariyas along the route and due to rain. I dropped the idea of going to work and returned home,” said Shobha Gogia, 38, a resident of Kirti Nagar.

Anticipating traffic congestion on Tuesday, the Delhi Police shared a detailed traffic advisory and imposed restrictions on vehicular movement along critical stretches of the Ring Road and connecting routes. Movement of buses and commercial vehicles will be prohibited on the stretch from Tis Hazari to Shahdara at Yudhister Setu, while the entry of commercial vehicles will be barred from ISBT Kashmere Gate towards Tis Hazari on Boulevard Road. At Lothian Road, movement of commercial vehicles will not be allowed from GPO Chowk to ISBT Kashmere Gate.

“The traffic situation is likely to be impacted on similar routes on Wednesday till afternoon at least,” a senior traffic police officer said, adding that while traffic police and police are deployed on the roads, the influx of Kanwariyas is “too huge to manage”.