Mentally ill man climbs up Howrah Bridge

KOLKATA - Traffic slowed to a crawl and pedestrians had a harrowing time Thursday as a mentally ill man climbed atop the Howrah Bridge here and threatened to jump into the river, police said. Firemen climbed up and forced him to come down after three hours.

Arvind Singh, 35, climbed on top of the Howrah Bridge in the afternoon and threatened to jump. He was later identified as a mad philosopher, who holding a string of beads, climbed the bridge and wanted to bless those who would come to bring him down.

Police requested Arvind to come down but all their pleas were in vain as he threatened to climb even higher and jump into the river.

“He had climbed up the bridge at 3.15 p.m. After about three hours, he was brought down by the firemen,” a police official said.

Later, when Arvind was questioned, he said that it gave him immense satisfaction to see people climbing up to reach him.

Vehicles moved extremely slowly on the Howrah Bridge for nearly two hours and it had simultaneously hit traffic on Brabourne Road on the Kolkata side and Bankim Setu on the Howrah side.