Police lathicharge to quell the protest at Agrico on Wednesday; (below) tyres burnt at Agrico-Sidhgora road. Pictures by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, Jan. 28: It was a demand for compensation that snowballed into a battle.

A section of Sidhgora residents today protested against police apathy to help family members of an accident victim to get compensation.

Sanjay Pandey, a Tata Ryerson employee, was hit by a truck on Sakchi-Baridih road at 4.30pm on Tuesday. The residents of Agrico have put up a blockade on the road after the accident demanding compensation for the victim’s family. They lifted the blockade after Dhalbhum sub-divisional officer (SDO) Kartik Kumar Prabhat said that he could pay Rs 10,000 for the time being and promised to look into the matter later.

The SDO promised to meet the activists at Sidhgora police station at 10am today. The residents led by Jharkhand Vikas Morcha activist Abhay Singh went to meet the SDO at 10.30am but found that the SDO has not turned up. The furious residents went on to block the Sakchi-Baridih road. They were on a rampage. They burnt tyres and smashed windscreen of trucks and autorickshaws.

The protesters proceeded towards Agrico Chowk to block the movement of vehicles there too but police party, after coming to know about the incident, reached the scene at 11pm. They chased the protesters, when the residents started pelting stones on them. To disperse the protesters police resorted to lathicharge.

The scene took the shape of a battleground.

More police personnel were called in to bring the situation under control.

The SDO had assured the prot,esters yesterday that he would talk to the transporter and arrange for the compensation. When Prabhat did not turn up at the police station today the residents thought the police is taking the issue to lightly.

Prabhat said the residents of Sidhgora with some political activists had held Sidhgora and Agrico area to ransom in the name of ensuring compensation for the bereaved family.

“I had promised to visit Sidhgora police station today to discuss about the compensation. But the transporter fled the city yesterday night and the meeting could not be held in his absence. We could do nothing to settle the compensation issue as it had been agreed upon. We had to resort to lathicharge to disperse the agitators,” Prabhat said.

The SDO claimed that he was ready to co-operate with the residents and arrange for the compensation through the insurance company.

He said creating violence was not a legal way of getting compensation.

Pandey was the sole bread-earner of the family of seven, among them four sisters.

The JVM activists prote-sted strongly as they felt that Prabhat had taken the episode lightly and have made a false promise to provide compensation for the bereaved family.

“We had resort to a protest of this sort because the administration was doing nothing about the whole episode,” said Abhay Singh, a senior JVM leader. He declared that his party would continue to protest unless the victim’s family was compensated well.

In the police lathicharge as many as three persons, including a JVM activist, were injured.

East Singhbhum superintendent of police Naveen Kumar Singh claimed that there was no lathicharge and that the police had only chased the protesters with lathis.