JEYPORE: Sunabeda police on Thursday booked around 30 residents of Kakigaon for allegedly blocking NH-26 by staging a protest and disrupting vehicular traffic.
The villagers had staged the protest after a 42-year-old was injured in a road accident near Sunabeda Women’s College on April 26. Yudhistir Konta was hit by a speeding car and shifted to AIIMS Bhubaneswar, where he succumbed on Wednesday.
Demanding immediate arrest of the car owner and driver, Konta’s relatives and villagers staged a road blockade on NH-26 near Sunabeda police station. The protest began around noon on Wednesday and continued late into the night, with agitators refusing to withdraw despite repeated appeals from the police.
The prolonged blockade left hundreds of commuters stranded for hours and police eventually resorted to force around 1 am to evict the protesters and restore order. However, vehicular movement was fully normalised only by around 3 pm on Thursday.
Sunabeda police registered two separate cases against the agitators. “We have registered cases against 30 persons of Kakigaon for their unlawful act of blocking the highway and harassing the public. They will be arrested soon,” said Sunabeda SDPO Sumitra Jena.
Koraput SP Rohit Verma said the matter would be reviewed to prevent such incidents in the future.