The section of the East-West Highway from Bardibas in Mahottari district to Jhumka in Sunsari is particularly risky, according to security officials.
Four-wheelers are being escorted by security personnel to fend off attacks by agitating Madhesi cadres. The protestors have been attacking vehicles carrying passengers bound for the Tarai districts for the Dashain holidays, it is learnt.
In spite of the police escorts, protestors hiding along the highway pelt stones at the passengers. It is hard to protect the vehicles from damage.
Sometimes, the broken glass injures the passengers and drivers, security officials involved in escorting the vehicles told Republica.
According to bus drivers, they have to wear protective helmets while driving along the East-West Highway.
They further said that there is no particular location or time when the protestors attack. "It can be anytime and anywhere. Some of the passengers also wear helmets and hide behind the seats during such attacks," they added.
How vehicle escorting is arranged
During the evenings, agitating Madhesi cadres in Siraha, Saptari and Dhanusha return home from their protests. Some of them then get busy planning obstruction of the vehicles plying along the highway while security officials, on the other hand, are busy working out strategy to escort the vehicles.
Security personnel are armed with guns, bullets, teargas shells, axes, water drums and other objects during the escorting.
The escorting police personnel are very busy every day from 9 pm to 6 am, according to DSP Uma Prasad Chaturbedi, who is also chief of District Police Office (DPO), Siraha.
He further said that escorting vehicles at night is particularly challenging. "Protestors vandalize the windscreen and window panes of 70 percent of the vehicles even with the police escorting," said DSP Chaturbedi.
Obstructions such as felled trees, hume pipes and ferro-concrete pillars that are placed across the road by the protesters are easy to remove but it is difficult to protect vehicle windscreens and window glass. Security personnel are positioned at the front and back of the long queues of vehicles being escorted but the protestors attack the middle, Chaturbedi said.
He added that sometimes nails and broken glass are also placed on the road to create obstructions.
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