Bowing to local pressure, the groups that had imposed district-wide shutdown demanding an undivided Mid-West province with Surkhet as its capital, called off their indefinite strike on Tuesday. Continuous shut down for the last nine days had thrown normal life out of gear in Jajarkot district. Life in the district has returned to normalcy as soon as the strike was called off, said DSP Dan Bahadur Malla, chief of the District Police Office, Jajarkot. Locals had been exerting pressure on the agitating groups to call off the strike as continuous shutdown had already started creating a shortage of daily necessities such as salt, oil, lentils, rice and petrol, among other things. As agitators had turned a deaf ear to the request of locals, the latter finally decided to defy the strike, said Malla.