Thane (Maharashtra), Jul 15 (IANS): In a novel protest, angry citizens of Thane on Monday dashed off over a 1,000 postcards to Thane Municipal Commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal demanding his urgent intervention to resolve the hawkers' menace in their locality.

The affected residents of over a dozen big housing complexes said that hundreds of hawkers have laid siege to the roads and pavements since two months, posing huge nuisance to the pedestrians, vehicles and emergency vehicular movements.

"Despite repeated representations, a procession, meetings with local corporators, over 100 tweets to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and the Mayor, the Thane Municipal Commissioner has ignored our pleas. Today, we have despatched 1,052 postcards seeking an audience and permanent solution to the hawkers' problems," Eden Woods Complex Secretary T. N. Raghunatha told IANS.

Lokpuram Society's Secretary Arvind Nadkarni said that the post-card campaign at Jaiswal was yet another step in the residents' peaceful agitation till their demand of making the entire locality into a hawker-free zone was achieved.

Besides no space for movement as the footpaths are occupied by the hawkers, G.A. March and surroundings witness traffic snarls everyday, besides potential accidents as many of the hawkers use illegal gas cylinders/stoves, he added.

Raghunatha said it is surprising why the Municipal Corporation failed to utilize a full-fledged market complex constructed at the Khevra Circle to accommodate the legal hawkers and instead handed it over to another government body for unknown reasons.

Residents of other complexes like Niharika, Vasundhara, Glendale, Lok Upvan I & II, Shubharambh, Ashar Residency, Hill Garden and Valley Towers are also participating in the unique anti-hawkers crusade.