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 t
hat 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