Traffic came to a grinding halt on the National Highway at Paliakkara, near Puthukkad, for about five hours on Wednesday when anti-toll activists put up a blockade demanding the stoppage of toll collection on the Angamali-Mannuthi stretch.
The situation grew tense when the police blocked the activists 100 metres from the toll plaza at 10.30 am and the CPI (ML) activists tried to break the police cordon.
Toll collection was stopped for about four hours. The traffic was resumed by 2 pm when the blockade ended. Thousands of police personnel were deployed on the NH to prevent any untoward incidents. About 30 organisations participated in the blockade.
Samyukata Samara Samithi convener P J Monsy, C R Neelakandan, C G Janardanan, Azad, Rama Raghunandan, A Nagesh, Jayan Konikkara and C A Haneefa led the blockade.