Bhubaneswar: In a tragic incident, 55-year-old man died after being run over by a speeding truck on National Highway 16 near Palasuni in Bhubaneswar on Thursday morning.
The deceased has been identified as Prashant Kumar Bej, a resident of Jajpur.
According to sources, Bej arrived in the city this morning to meet his son Partha, a mason who had recently shifted here from Hyderabad. He was waiting for him on the other side of the road and was unaware of the tragedy that had befallen his family.
Bej fell on the road after being hit by a motorcycle near Durga Mandap while crossing the highway holding bagful of vegetables and was then crushed by a truck which was entering the state capital.
The truck driver and the motorcyclist fled the scene after the accident.
Tension prevailed in the area as angry locals staged a road blockade demanding the construction of a foot overbridge to avoid such incidents, leading to a massive traffic jam in NH-16 which also delayed arrival of the ambulance to shift the body of the deceased to Capital Hospital.
On being informed, a team from Mancheswar police station rushed to the site and managed to lift the blockade after about an hour. “We seized the truck and registered a complaint,” said IIC, Mancheswar police station, MK Swain.
The CCTV footage of the incident went viral later in the day.