Complaints of bursting of banned firecrackers and use of loudspeakers were reported from several parts of the city on Wednesday.
The city police headquarters at Lalbazar had received at least 10 such complaints from various pockets of the city from before dawn till around 8pm, officers said.
Sources at Lalbazar said the majority of the complaints were from Ballygunge, Gariahat, EM Bypass, the Maidan area and parts of north Kolkata.
Several Kolkatans The Telegraph spoke to complained of incessant bursting of firecrackers and use of loudspeakers in their neighbourhoods on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“I woke up with a start around 3.30am. Loud music was being played in our locality. This was not the first time something like this happened. We have been facing this over the past nine days,” complained Deepali Singhee, an academic who lives in a high-rise on Topsia Road in east Kolkata.
“I have lodged several complaints with the local police station but relief is only temporary. Every time the cops leave the spot, the music resumes.”
Singhee said she had mailed her complaint twice to senior officers at Lalbazar.
A resident of Dover Terrace off Gariahat in south Kolkata said he could hear multiple rounds of banned firecrackers being burst in his neighbourhood on Wednesday evening.
“The sound was ear-piercing, something I had not heard before. People are bursting such crackers at regular intervals,” he said.
There were reports of crackers being burst from the Maidan area between 5pm and 5.30pm.
A resident of Anandapur, off EM Bypass in east Kolkata, said there was intermittent bursting of firecrackers on Wednesday evening — something she said she had been living with since Kali Puja.
Some officers said Chhath worshippers across the city burst firecrackers on Wednesday.
“We are stopping DJ music or the use of loudspeakers when people are heading for the river. But in most cases, it is being found that firecrackers are being burst in lanes and bylanes, which are difficult to locate unless there is a specific complaint,” said an officer in central Kolkata.
A senior officer at Lalbazar said it was practically impossible to detect and stop sporadic cases of bursting of firecrackers across the city unless there was an actionable complaint.
“We are trying our best to act promptly on every complaint we receive. But in some cases, by the time our officers reach the spot, the sound subsides and then it becomes very difficult to identify the origin of the sound,” said the officer.
