The Mayurbhanj district headquarters town of Baripada on Wednesday observed a 12-hour bandh in support of the popular demand to make Baripada totally free from the menace of brown sugar.
The dawn-to-dusk bandh call was given by the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha’s (JMM) youth wing and supported by the Mayurbhanj District Bar Association. late on Tuesday evening, the JMM students’ wing had also organised a bike rally in the town to appeal to the citizens of Baripada to support to the bandh.
As an impact of the bandh call, schools and colleges, banks and business establishments and different offices and petrol pumps in the town remained closed. Vehicular traffic was off the road. A large number of trucks and other four-wheelers were also stranded on the NH-5 that passes through the town. Normal life here was almost thrown out of gear till the evening as the bandh was near-total.
Teenagers being addicted to drugs like brown sugar have now been committing crimes in the otherwise peaceful town of Baripada. This has become a major cause of concern for the public as well as for the administration.