Keonjhar, Nov 18: After a gap of five days, the work of Belbahali Bridge on the Kusei River finally began again by the district administration, here on Thursday under Anandpur sub-division. The work began from Barigaon side of the bridge. Top government officials including the District Collector, N Thirumala Nayak and Superintendent of Police. Around 22 platoons of police have been deployed on the site to prevent the happening of any untoward incident or the halting of the construction work. On Tuesday a high level meeting was held in this regard where it had been decided to begin the construction work again having security all around.
Tension ran high at Belbahali village on Friday when locals pelted stones at police, protesting construction of the bridge over river Kusei on NH-215. Even as locals have been protesting the proposed bridge for the last two years claiming that its construction would lead to flooding of the area, the construction firm, Gayatri Projects, began work on the project on Friday afternoon amidst police deployment. On Saturday morning, villagers gathered at the site and pelted stones at the cops following which the latter had to use teargas to disperse the mob. Four villagers and two policemen were injured in the incident.
