East Coast Road is congested, and police are escorting government buses.

CHENNAI: On Friday, East Coast Road users of government buses saw a peculiar sight: three buses were being escorted by one police officer. The security protection was implemented following the violence that occurred on Thursday in Marakkanam when PMK employees went on the rampage. Police made sure that these buses left at the same time so that providing escort would be simple, according to a state transport corporation official from the Villupuram division. He claimed that this had an impact on operations but that there was nothing they could do about it. Officials from State Express Transport Corporation stated that no buses were permitted on ECR till the afternoon. According to a senior official, “we were told by the police not to run buses from Chennai to Puducherry via ECR and vehicles were diverted via NH 45 until afternoon.” Although there were minor time issues, NH 45 traffic was not congested. Nothing was delayed. We did not receive any complaints because passengers were already aware of the problem, the official stated. Police, on the other hand, denied that any buses were diverted at their request. Inspector General of Police for the North Zone S Kannappan stated, “We did not ask for any such arrangement.” Along the route, police officers were stationed in large numbers, and senior officials oversaw the arrangements. ECR traffic was impacted. There were not many cars there. Things will not get back to normal for a time, an officer added.