Thrissur: Tension flared on Thursday after residents and local body representatives locked up a National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) site engineer over severe traffic congestion on the Mannuthy–Edappally stretch of NH-544. Site engineer Amal A was confined by representatives of the Melur grama panchayat, who were angered by the absence of the project director at a key meeting.

The meeting, held at the NHAI office in Chalakudy, was convened to address the persistent bottleneck at Muringoor. However, with the project director absent, Amal was sent as a representative, which upset the panchayat members. In protest, they locked him inside the office.

When police tried to open the office shutters, a scuffle broke out between them and the residents. Amal was eventually released around 5.30 pm, nearly three hours later, following talks led by Chalakudy DySP P C Bijukumar. The police assured them that project director Ansil Hassan would attend a review meeting within a week. It was also decided that road tarring at Muringoor would begin on Thursday night itself, with Amal overseeing the work.