Hundreds of vehicles were stranded on Srinagar-Gulmarag highway on Thursday after the people of Cheki Kawoosa staged a protest against the alleged failure of Public Health Engineering (PHE) department in providing drinking water to villagers.Raising slogans against the PHE department scores of the residents including men, women and children gathered on main road and blocked the traffic movement on the vital road. The residents demanded that authorities must take measures to end the water shortage faced by locals for the past several years.“The authorities have cheated us many a times by making fake promises,” they alleged. A protesting local said that the government has turned a blind eye towards their plight and a shortage of water is causing great inconvenience to them.“This is not the first time that we hit streets but in past few years we are being forced to stage protests,” he said. (PTK)