A Sahitya Akademi-feted author launched a three-day hunger strike in Dumka on Thursday to protest against the poor condition of roads in Santhal Pargana, particularly the Nonihat-Basukinath stretch in Dumka, some 300km from Ranchi.

Nilotpal Mrinal, recipient of the Youth Sahitya Akademi award for his novel Dark Horse: Ek ankahi dastaan in 2016, said that he was forced to resort to a fast because successive governments had paid little attention to public safety.

Mrinal was accompanied by a handful of supporters holding banners titled “— Hemant hai toh himmat hai, but sadar kahan hain?”

“I should have protested for a medical college, or for the improvement of a hospital, jobs for youths and so on. But I am forced to sit on a road for better roads because no one is concerned about public safety,” Mrinal said.

Snubbing the political class cutting across the parties, he said, “Today, everyone is concerned about their own well-being, their lobbies and their future. But no one is talking about the improvement of roads in this part of the state, which has turned from bad to worse.”

Santhal Pargana comprises six districts of Dumka, Jamtara, Sahebganj, Godda, Pakur and Deoghar and has 18 Assembly constituencies. Of them, 15 are held by the ruling JMM and Congress combine, while the rest are with Opposition BJP.

In the last month, at least a dozen people have died in various road mishaps. On August 26, six persons, including a toddler, died in Dumka after a rice laden truck fell over a car while trying to negotiate a pothole.