Ranchi: Freeway Friday, thanks to chief minister Raghubar Das's diktat, was back to square one in Ranchi with Snarl Saturday.

Traffic cops had a hard time on a stretch of Garikhana near Harmu, when people erupted in protest on Saturday over a cut road divider that was plugged in a rerun of Friday's stir in adjoining Kishoreganj on the same issue.

Garikhana and Kishoreganj fall on the 3km stretch between Ratu Road Chowk and Sahjanand Chowk whose road divider has 10 cuts, prompting the chief minister to ask some be plugged to stop U-turns that increase traffic snarls.

As a 25-feet-wide cut on the road divider near Garikhana Chowk stretch was cemented on Saturday, residents spilled into the street from 10am onwards. Traffic collapsed around noon when four protesters sat on road, ignoring repeated pleas of cops. Later, three of them were detained for disturbing traffic, Kotwali OC S.N. Mandal said.

Traffic DSP Radha Prem Kishore said closing the cut at Garikhana would streamline traffic.

But, residents disagreed, alleging the closure of two breaches at Garikhana and Kishoreganj Chowk increased traffic jams. Pedestrians crossed Kishoreganj's plugged-in gap that protesters had partially broken on Friday, but vehicles couldn't.

"Traffic officials are not applying common sense in obeying the chief minister's order. These two cuts helped traffic flow in rush hour. Now the consequences are before you," said Ranjan Kumar Singh of Kishoreganj at noon, showing snarls on the 500-metre-stretch from Garikhana to Shani Mandir where three dozen traffic cops headed by traffic DSPs Dilip Xalxo and Radha Prem Kishore were struggling to streamline traffic.

Most traffic cops were deployed near Shani Mandir, where the divider cut is open and the road goes towards Upper Bazaar.

The gap near Shani Mandir became a pressure point for traffic cops after cuts at Kishoreganj Chowk and Garikhana were closed, said an ASI ranked traffic cop.