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| People block RP Road on Friday. Picture by UB Photos |
Guwahati, Sept. 13: People, enraged by the electrocution of a man at Ganeshguri last evening, blocked RP Road today in protest against alleged government negligence that led to the accident.
Manab Barman, 31, was electrocuted yesterday when he came in contact with exposed wires jutting out of an advertisement board on a road divider while trying to cross RP Road near Bee Kay Tower at Ganeshguri. The deceased, who hails from Ghograpar in Nalbari district, was a Grade IV employee of Sarba Siksha Abhijan, Assam.
Blaming negligence by the power department for the incident, protesters blocked the road for nearly 30 minutes around 10.30am, demanding action against those responsible for the accident, before police dispersed them.
“It is a serious matter. How can a live electric wire be left lying unattended in the middle of the road?” asked Apurba Thakuria, a Ganeshguri market fruit-seller. He said such incidents had happened several times but the authorities were yet to learn a lesson.
A woman had met the same fate when she accidentally stepped on an exposed wire on a flooded street at Anil Nagar in May this year.
While Kamrup (metro) deputy commissioner today ordered executive magistrate Nayan Kumar Pathak to probe the incident, the police lodged an FIR at Dispur police station against the assistant general manager of Guwahati electrical division (east) of Assam Power Distribution Company Limited (APDCL), the sub-divisional engineer of capital electrical subdivision of APDCL, the proprietor of Prism Cine Files and the PWD, which is responsible for maintaining the road.
The APDCL had given that particular electrical connection to Prism Cine Files for illuminating an advertisement board put up by it on the road divider.
A statement issued by the chief electrical inspector-cum-adviser to the state government, S. Barooa, today said preliminary investigations had revealed that electric wires with bare joints were used to provide power supply to electrically illuminated advertisement boards.
