Katni (Madhya Pradesh), Sep 21 (IANS): In a bizarre incident in Madhya Pradesh's Katni district, construction workers built a road over a man who had fallen into a pothole allegedly in a drunken stupor. Two people were arrested for causing the unintentional death, police said on Monday.

According to police, Latori Burman, 45, a resident of Khadra village, had gone to meet his in-laws with his wife. His wife opted to stay back at her parents' place, while he returned home.

His body was later found buried under a newly-built gravel road.

Police said it later emerged that Burman had fallen into a pothole and a JCB machine, used for road construction, poured gravel over the pothole to level the road, burying the allegedly inebriated man lying there.

Alert villagers dug up the road after noticing a hand emerging out of the ground -- and found the body of a man buried underneath. Residents also staged a protest on Saturday to protest the callousness of the road-construction workers.

District Police Superintendent Gaurav Rajput told IANS: "Initial post-mortem report has indicated that the death was caused by suffocation. Whether the man was drunk or not would only be ascertained after a detailed examination."