Bengaluru Metro strike: Services resume seven hours after shut down; police, staff resolve issues

Bengaluru woke up to a rather chaotic Friday. The Namma Metro service, which was recently inaugurated in the city, was suspended and almost three lakh commuters were left stranded. The services were shut because of a fight that broke out at Sir MV Metro Station between a group of Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) employees and two Karnataka State Industrial Security Force (KSISF) personnel on Thursday night, reported the Times of India.[caption id="attachment_3771677" align="alignleft" width="380"] Representational image. PTI[/caption]Bengaluru Police arrested a few BMRCL employees late on Thursday which spurred a strike. A FIR was filed against five BMRCL employees and two were arrested, as per a report in the Deccan Herald.This led to the strike by BMRCL employees on Friday morning, demanding the release of the workers. The Purple and Green lines of the Namma Metro, which carry around three lakh passengers across the city every day, remained shut until afternoon."All our services are down and talks are on to resume them as soon as possible," a senior BMRCL official said, as per a report in The Hindu.Namma Metro, which normally starts operations at 5 am on both lines, did not open its shutters to the public until noon. A BMRCL staffer was quoted by the Deccan Herald as saying, "Trains on both Purple and Green Lines are not operating from this morning. About 300 BMRCL staffers are protesting at Byappanahalli Metro station against the police brutality on one of the staffers and release of the two staffers arrested yesterday."Deccan Herald also reported that Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George was planning to take the metro from Baiyappanahalli to Nagasandra, a move which backfired.However, the efforts from few BMRCL officials to start the Metro operations from Mysuru Road in the morning came through at around 12 pm on Friday. "They are trying to persuade us to work from 4.30 am in the morning. We want justice and security," a staffer said, according to a Bangalore Mirror report.ANI reported that the suspended services resumed at 12 in the afternoon after nearly seven hours of negotiations between BMRCL staff and the police department.