Residents of Nadia’s Birohi blocked NH12 for about two hours on Saturday night, demanding the arrest of the culprits who allegedly killed a local youth, apparently for raising his voice against their running a suspected sex racket in the area.

The blockade caused major traffic snarls on and around NH12 between Barasat and Krishnagar. Normality was restored only after police arrested Suman Sheikh, one of the accused, and promised the protestors to do the needful.

Police sources said Subho Das, 24, a resident of Birohi Roypara in Haringhata, was assaulted fatally when he led a demonstration in the area on Friday evening, condemning the suspected sex racket. The demonstration eventually prompted the police to conduct a raid at a house and arrest four couples.

The incident angered the alleged operators of the sex racket. To take revenge on Das for mobilising people, they allegedly attacked him. Das was kicked around to within an inch of his life, and was critically injured. Rushed to the JNM Hospital in Kalyani and shifted to a Calcutta-based hospital, he eventually succumbed to injuries on Saturday afternoon.

Tension was triggered in his area later in the evening, when Das’s body arrived after an autopsy from Calcutta. The local residents blocked the NH12 at the Birohi Market crossing with the body, demanding immediate arrest of the culprits.

A senior official of the Ranaghat police district said a murder case was started on the basis of a complaint by the victim’s family, lodged at the Haringhata police station.