‘Just recovered from flood, boom boxes like a quake’: Delhi residents on loudspeaker menace

Residents alleged that among the worst affected are people of south and southeast Delhi, especially those residing in Greater Kailash, CR Park, Kalkaji, New Friends Colony, Nehru Place and Lajpat Nagar

New Delhi

Residents said the songs that started around 9pm on Sunday went on till 7am on Monday. (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

The onset of the festive season has brought along with it long traffic snarls and noise pollution, as many groups continued to blast devotional music on truck-mounted loudspeakers and boom boxes for a fourth consecutive day, residents said. The traffic police also advised public to avoid Netaji Subash Marg near Red Fort and Nishad Raj Marg—located near Ramleela venues—until October 3.

Residents alleged that among the worst affected are people of south and southeast Delhi, especially those residing in Greater Kailash, CR Park, Kalkaji, New Friends Colony, Nehru Place and Lajpat Nagar, among others in the vicinity of the Mathura Road and Ring Road.

A 63-year-old resident of Maharani Bagh Block A, requesting anonymity, said, “My family and I could not sleep the entire night due to this. Both my children, who are five and seven years old, could not go to school today as they had not slept. My parents, both of whom are over 80 years old, said that they were worried they would get a heart attack. The noise had started at 9pm on Sunday and continued till 7am on Monday. I thought the windows would shatter. We cannot live like this.”

Delhi Police on Monday said that complaints of boom boxes were received on the eve of Navratri (Monday) and they either shut off more than 60 loudspeakers or reduced their volume. Deputy commissioner of police (southeast) Hemant Tiwari and other senior police officers were near the Kalkaji temple to oversee the situation.

Sixty-four-year-old Savita Bhaskar, who lives in Ishwar Nagar,said, “If the government wants to do something, they should. Why are they not stepping up in this case? They played songs all night and that too, not just a single song at a time. Many were overlapping and resulted in screeching noises.”

Srijeet Bhattacharya, 29, a resident of Lajpat Nagar, said that residents of the area suffer whenever there is a festival. “I am a religious person too, I understand the need to observe traditions. But what is this? Where you are playing music so loud that people cannot sleep and sick people will probably become sicker. All this happening right in the middle of the Capital!”

In north Delhi’s Civil Lines, Pooja Narayan, 45,an architect, said, “Imagine being fast asleep, safe in your bed, to be woken up by the sound and vibration of furniture and windows rattling loudly, and your heart pounding with loud thumping music… Now imagine that you are two years old or 91 years old or have a heart condition or epilepsy. We have all four such cases in our complex. We have barely recovered from the floods, and now, it feels like an earthquake.”

In an advisory, police said, “As of now, only commercial and DTC vehicles have been asked to divert their routes around the Delhi Gate area between 5pm and midnight until October 3. All commercial vehicles and DTC buses will be diverted from Delhi Gate Chowk, Daryaganj, and Chatta Rail Chowk from September 22 to October 3, instead of moving towards Red Fort.”

Instead, they will be routed through Shanti Van, Hanuman Setu and Salimgarh Bypass.