Traffic was hit for more than two hours on Gollavar Agraharam Road in Royapuram on Friday, after around 120 students and their parents blocked the stretch in front of KC Sankaralinga Nadar Higher Secondary School.

The students, who had just completed class XII, were protesting as the school authorities had not given them the laptops they had been promised.

Earlier, the students had been told they could collect the laptops from the school on Friday. At 9 a.m. on Friday, around 240 students from all streams arrived on the premises with their parents to collect the laptops. However, the school’s authorities told a section of 120 students that laptops had been sanctioned only for one batch, and the rest had to come back later, after a request for more laptops was processed by the government.

Upset, the students and parents argued with the authorities. Despite the authorities’ repeated assurances that the laptops would arrive and be given, around 10 a.m., the group staged a sit-in protest in front of the school’s premises.

Police arrived and diverted traffic for a while, as vehicles had piled up for nearly a kilometre. They also pacified the agitated students and made them disperse.

The school has now collected the names and addresses of the students and promised them the laptops would be given to them at the earliest.