With gas tanker lorries turning the worst nightmare of the people living in Chala, the movement of tanker lorries carrying LPG along the Chala bypass road has come to a halt.
As many as 18 bullet tanker lorries were blocked by the people on Saturday night at Chala causing a tense situation in the area.
Following the disaster that claimed the lives of 19 persons at Chala, thel ocal people had taken a decision that tanker lorries moving al’ong the road without following the rules and regulations would be blocked.
More than a dozen tanker lorries carrying LPG were blocked by an irate group of people in the area stating that no safety measures promised by the Chief minister were taken before allowing the tanker lorries to resume transportation of LPG.
A tense situation prevailed in the Chala area as the traffic along the bypass was blocked for more than two hours on Saturday night. District Collector Retan Kelkar, District Police chief Rahul R Nair and other officials who reached the spot couldn’t persuade the people to lift the blockade.
The allegation of the agitated local people was that most of the vehicles had only a single driver and there was no one to assist the lone driver.
The vehicles coming from Mangalore had bribed the checkpost officials to gain entry to the state without following the regulations.
To make the matters worse, some of the drivers admitted that they had to pay bribes to officials to obtain clearance for movement of their vehicles. Another allegation raised by the local people was that some of the drivers of the tanker lorries were drunk. Drunken driving was stated to be another reason for the increasing number of road accidents in the region.
The tanker lorries were taken to the Edakkad police station later.
The authorities also promised to subject the drivers suspected to be drunk to medical examinations to find out how many of themwere drunk while driving the vehicles. The police also filed cases against the offenders.