Road roko @ Kancheepuram

Kancheepuram:Twenty-five people, including five women, of Vedal village were arrested on charges of staging a road roko on the Chennai-Bangalore National Highway on Tuesday.According to police, trouble broke out at around 10 a.m. when a police patrol team intercepted a motorcyclist, Sarathy, working as a clerk in Vedal village panchayat and warned him not to drive his vehicle in wrong direction on the National Highway. A wordy duel broke out between the police team and Sarathy.

Nethaji, a relative of Vedal village panchayat president, came to the spot and argued with the policemen in support of the panchayat clerk. Subsequently, stones were pelted against the policemen by a mob, which later blocked the traffic on the National Highway for about 20 minutes by squatting on the carriageway.

Superintendent of Police A. Amalraj and other officials rushed to the spot and removed the demonstrators from the carriageway. When the villages attempted to retaliate, mild force was used to bring the situation on the carriageway back to normalcy, police said.Bicycles and two-wheelers used by the demonstrators as part of the blockade were loaded in a goods carrier and taken away. Twenty male and five women from the village were arrested and remanded to judicial custody, police said.