BHUBANESWAR: Commissionerate Police’s cup of woes spilled over to the streets of the Capital City on Wednesday after hundreds of locals staged a road blockade at Rasulgarh Square protesting a brutal attack on a popular hotel owner last night capping a day of four brazen robberies.
Burning tyres, the demonstrators blocked NH-16 and raised slogans against the police and local administration bringing vehicular movement on Cuttack-Bhubaneswar route to a halt for 30 minutes. Police Commissioner Satyajit Mohanty and Bhubaneswar DCP Anup Sahoo rushed to the spot to pacify the agitators.
Earlier, around Tuesday midnight, Bulu Samantray, owner of Hotel Trupti, was attacked while he was returning home. He was intercepted by five armed bike-borne miscreants near Pala Mandap under Mancheswar police limits.
The bike-borne miscreants assaulted Samantaray with sharp weapons and looted `60,000, one gold chain and three gold rings. On hearing the victim’s screams, locals rushed to their terraces but the anti-socials threatened them at gunpoint. However, they fled when people started assembling. While the incident came close on the heels of three robberies in the region earlier in the day, what infuriated the locals was police indifference when they reported the matter after the incident.
“We found a mobile phone and a weapon from the spot which the miscreants had left after locals started hurling bottles and wooden planks at them from their terraces. However, when we handed over the mobile phone to Mancheswar police on Wednesday, they expressed reluctance to find out its owner,” said a local. Angry locals took to the NH in the morning demanding immediate action.
Police Commissioner Mohanty assured the locals that anti-socials involved in the crime will be nabbed within 24 hours, following which the protest was called off. The series of armed attacks and robberies in the Capital City has posed a serious question mark on the safety and security of people.