A day after Congress district president and other activists were injured after police resorted to mild lathicharge on agitating activists who were demonstrating at Sakchi police station against alleged police atrocities on auto-rickshaw owners in Sakchi.
However, the protest rally by supporters of Congress party hit vehicular movement at several roads in Sakchi.
Around 700 Congress supporters led by state party president Ajoy Kumar and accompanied by former Jamshedpur West MlA Banna Gupta and former Jugsalai MlA Dulal Bhuiyan held a meeting at Aam Bagan ground in Sakchi before starting a rally towards East Singhbhum senior superintendent of police (SSP) office.
The rally hit traffic movement on Sakchi Highway and Subernarekha link Road, both in Sakchi and vehicles were stranded. A long queue of cars and other mode of vehicles had been made as the vehicular communication came to a standstill due to the blockade. Commuters had to suffer immensely.
As this was the prominent road, this caused great inconvenience to the local residents and also others. When the two-wheelers and pedestrians took to other routes, those in four-wheelers and three wheelers remained stuck up in the jam.
Congress supporters denied of causing traffic bottlenecks for a substantial portion of time. “ We were protesting against injustice. We had staged the rally under the directive of our state president to protest against the police lathicharge on party supporters at Sakchi police station yesterday evening while we were peacefully staging a road block against assault and harassment of an auto-rickshaw driver from Mango near Sakchi roundabout. Several of our party supporters including district president Bijay Khan sustained minor injuries. We had gone in the form of a rally to meet East Singhbhum SSP Anoop T. Mathew demanding action against the guilty police officials,” said Bablu Jha, district Congress media-in-charge.
Meanwhile, the Congress activists later in the evening took out a torch rally at Sakchi roundabout against police role. Senior leader SRA Rizwi Chabban has demanded probe into the incident.