Bhubaneswar, June 4: An agitated mob in Janla on the city’s outskirts today blocked the road connecting Jatani to the NH-5 for more than two hours. The mob also ransacked the office of the Central Electricity Supply Utility (Cesu) protesting against the death of one of its employees.

Some villagers also kidnapped a superintending engineer of Cesu who was rescued later by the city police. All this happened due to an accident last night in which a Cesu employee was killed and five of his colleagues injured while trying to repair a 33KV power cable.

According to sources, the electric supply line was disrupted for more than four hours last night in the Jatani area. Later, around midnight, Cesu workers went to repair the electric line near an engineering college.

“While they were carrying out the repair work on a 33KV electric line, current suddenly flowed into the line causing death of a lineman and injuries to five others,” said B.C. Jena, chief executive officer of Cesu. The deceased was identified as Sudarshan Martha. The injured were identified as junior engineers Nigam Ranjan Padhee and Akhay Kumar Padhee, linemen Rabi Narayan Samantray and Jairam Barik and driver Chitta Ranjan Barik. The injured people were admitted to a private hospital.

Drama started in the morning after the postmortem of the deceased person’s body was over. Some people from a nearby village, to which the Martha belonged, kidnapped a superintending engineer identified as P.K. Das and took him in an ambulance in which they were taking Martha’s body to their village.

The city police sprung into action after getting information about the kidnap. Khandagiri police caught the ambulance at Kalinga Vihar Square by blocking the national highway and rescued the engineer. As the incident had occurred under Chandrasekharpur police station, the Khandagiri police handed over the four kidnappers over to the Chandrasekharpur police.

Jena said he had lodged a complaint with the police regarding the kidnap of the superintending engineer. The police, however, are yet to forward the arrested persons to the court. “We will forward them to the court tomorrow,” said a police officer.

Later in the afternoon, the villagers protested by blocking the road connecting Jatani Square to the national highway for more than two hours keeping the police Martha’s body on the road. They also ransacked the Cesu office at Jatani demanding compensation for the family of the deceased as well as for the injured persons.

The CEO later assured the protestors that the family of the deceased person would be provided with Rs 10 lakh compensation and the entire cost of treatment for the injured persons would also be borne by the company. Besides, the injured persons would get full salary for the period of hospitalisation.