Villagers stage road roko, demand bus stop on NH

CHENNAI: Tension prevailed on the Chennai-Kolkata national highways after villagers from Andhra Pradesh staged a road roko bringing traffic on the highway to a halt for close to two hours on Thursday. The villagers were demanding that both AP and TN buses halt at their village. Police said over 2,000 residents of Ramapuram village and the 15 hamlets surrounding it - all belonging to AP took to NH5 on Thursday morning. Protestors alleged that though few TN buses stopped, none of the AP buses halted.The road roko caused traffic to pile up for more than five kilometres on the highway, police said. Police sources said that TN Tourism Minister Gokula Indira, who was returning from Tirupati, was also caught in the traffic jam, but police intervened and cleared the traffic for her.