Strike over inflation shuts down West Bengal

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - A strike over rising prices shut schools, offices and businesses in West Bengal on Monday as nationwide protests against inflation continued, police said.

Protesters stopped trains by throwing banana leaves on overhead wires and blocked roads in state capital Kolkata, as a dawn-to-dusk strike called by the state's main opposition party took hold, witnesses and police said.

In Kolkata, strike supporters threw stones at a state-run bus and smashed its windscreen with rods, as authorities and private owners took off buses from the roads fearing attacks.

At least 300 people were detained in West Bengal for causing violence, Raj Kanojia, a senior police officer said.

In many places strike enforcers wore garlands of onion and potato and shouted: "We want answers now." Most trains were cancelled or delayed for hours.

"Other than long-distance trains, the suburban locals on which millions commute every day have been affected the most," Samir Goswami, a railway spokesman said on Monday.

Protests against inflation caused traffic snarls in New Delhi and many other parts of the country last week, while opposition lawmakers, protesting against rising prices in parliament, halted proceedings in the lower house.

Inflation in India hit a three-year high at the end of March, reaching 7.41 percent and raising political tension in the country.

In spite of the Congress party-led coalition government's assurance that they were taking steps to control inflation in the coming weeks, angry people have taken to the streets.