Protests condemning the United States for the anti-Islamic movie “The Innocence of Muslims” threw traffic out of gear on the busy Anna Salai stretch for the second consecutive day.
City police halted traffic on Peters Road from 11 am as functionaries of the Tamil Nadu Thowheed Jamath had given a notice that their organisation would “lay siege” on the US Consulate on Cathedral Road at 11:30 am by taking out a procession from Thousand Lights Mosque Junction. Vehicles bound for Anna Salai via Peters Road were diverted to Radhakrishnan Salai.
However, protestors gathered 30 minutes prior to the time intimated to the police and brought traffic to a grinding halt for over three hours by putting up a barricade at Whites Road Junction on Anna Salai. Some two-wheelers and auto drivers managed to steer their vehicles through the narrow lanes that linked other arterial roads to Anna Salai. Those in cars and MTC buses, however, had a harrowing time as the traffic was moving at a snail’s pace until the protestors were removed by the police.
Udhaya, a courier boy, who started from Guindy to deliver packages via the Anna Salai stretch, lamented, “Police help in traffic regulation did not come handy as they only focussed on arresting the protesters.”
MTC buses that had to ply across this stretch were delayed by at least two hours and had to run over-time. As a result, many devotees travelling in MTC buses to reach the Central failed to catch the train to Tirupathi.
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