Bhubaneswar: Vehicular movement on NH-16 at Palasuni came to a grinding halt for over half an hour Sunday morning after a 38-year-old man was mowed down by a speeding truck as angry locals blocked the arterial road, connecting Cuttack, demanding the construction of a foot over bridge (FOB) which has been pending since long. The deceased was identified as Bula Sethi who worked as a daily wage laborer at a factory in Mancheswar Industrial Estate.
The Mancheswar police said the incident occurred at around 9 am when Bula was crossing the road. He narrowly ducked a speeding car before coming under a speeding truck. He had suffered deep injuries in the accident and bled profusely. Police reached the spot and sent the injured to Capital Hospital where doctors declared him ‘brought dead’. The driver of the truck sped off after the accident. Police said efforts are being made to nab him. An officer at the police station said that the body of the victim has been sent for postmortem which will ascertain the exact cause of death. He said the deceased’s family has been informed about the incident. The police will hand over the body to them after due verification, he added. Following the incident, large number of locals gathered on the spot and staged a roadblock alleging that the spot had become a death trap in the absence of an FOB. This is forcing pedestrians to cross the road by braving the dangerously driven vehicles, they said.
Following intervention by the police, the situation was brought under control and the crowd dispersed. It may be noted that the Ministry of Railways had sanctioned the construction of a FOB near Palasuni area in June this year to facilitate smooth vehicular traffic management on the busy stretch of highway. The announcement was made following widespread public outrage over the inordinate delay in the construction of the FOB. Abhiram Upadhyaya, who commutes daily on the road to his office at Phulnakhara, said, unlike other major arterial roads on the City outskirts, the stretch between Rasulgarh and Phulnakhara is dotted with abrupt diversions that force vehicles to cut lanes from all sides. “This makes driving not only bumpy but also risky. Pedestrians and two-wheeler riders are at the greater risk of accidents,” he said.