Lawyers’ 12-hour bandh disrupts normal life in Odisha’s Puri

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Puri, Jun 24:

Normal life was disrupted in Odisha’s Puri town today following a 12-hour dawn-to-dusk strike call by the Puri District Bar Association protesting against gross deviation in Brahma Parivartan rituals of the deities inside Shri Jagannath temple and demanding action against the erring servitors.

According to reports, the agitating lawyers went to the railway station in the morning and picketed on the rail tracks. They also stopped the movement of Puri-Gunupur and Puri-Cuttack passenger trains.

Vehicular traffic came to a grinding halt in the town as the lawyers staged road blockade at Atharanala Chhak.

The Puri Town Autorickshaw Association has also supported the bandh call.

Besides, all business and trading establishments and educational institutions also remained closed due to the bandh.

Extending its support to the Association, the lawyers of the Odisha High Court Bar Association also boycotted their work today. The Assciation has urged the state government to conduct a judicial probe into the incident by a sitting judge of the High Court.

Some of the Bar Association in other district including the Bhubaneswar Bar Association have also supported to the bandh call.

This apart, the Opposition BJP and the Congress have lent their unstinting support to the bandh call.

“The situation in the town is by and large peaceful. Train services have resumed a little while ago after the lawyers left the railway station. We have the information that the lawyers will withdraw the blockade at Atharanala after some time. While most of the shops in the town have remained close, medicines shops have remained open”, Additional SP Jagannath Pradhan informed the media.