BHUBANESWAR: Cleanliness activities were crippled in the state capital as hundreds of sanitation workers of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) staged a mass protest seeking justice for the family of their association leader Sahadev Nayak who was brutally murdered near Rasulgarh on Wednesday.
Boycotting street sweeping, door-to-door waste collection and other cleaning work, the workers gathered at Sishu Bhawan Square and demanded capital punishment for those involved in the gruesome murder of their leader in broad daylight. “Our protest will continue till justice is delivered to Sahadev,” said one of the agitating workers.
The agitation brought city’s sanitation activities to a grinding halt, prompting BMC to look for an alternative to ensure the ongoing Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) was not impacted. A senior officer of BMC said demands of the workers were justified but efforts are on to ensure sanitation work is not affected by the agitation. “Accordingly, alternative arrangements have been made for waste collection and disposal in the priority road network during the PBD convention,” he added. The BMC also urged the sanitary workers to resume their work at the earliest.
Earlier, mayor Sulochana Das had termed Sahadev as a messiah of the sanitation workers and sought strong punishment for the accused involved in the heinous crime.