Truck drivers block highway repair
Life is getting tougher for contractors and labourers working at the Shiradi Ghat section of the Mangalore-Bangalore NH-48. All thanks to mine truck drivers taking the law into their hands.
On Saturday night, the drivers of mine trucks, which entered Shiradi Ghat from Sakleshpur defying the ban, allegedly thrashed the labourers and damaged an excavation machine.
Gokuldas Bhandarkar, a contractor who bagged the deal concreting the double turn and 12 curves (of about 1.8-km stretch), said Manju, a worker from Kalhalli, sustained fracture on his leg after the drivers attacked him.
Asked for the reason for the attack, Bhandarkar said the drivers alleged that the labourers had thrown stones at them. “In reality, it might have been a stray stone flying across from the tyre of the excavator”. The incident occurred at the work site near Rajghat, five km from Maranahalli police station, where 20 labourers were engaged in concrete work. The damage to the machine is put at Rs 80,000.
