Four employees of the Orissa Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (IDCO) and an employee of Posco were on Friday detained for four hours by villagers opposing establishment of the proposed steel plant of the South Korean company in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district.
The five were detained by the residents of Balisahi hamlet under Nuagaon gram panchayat when they entered the village for some project-related work. They were released at 5 p.m. after they gave in writing that they would not visit the locality in future, according to Bhaskar Swain, sarpanch of Nuagaon panchayat and convenor of Bhitamati Surakshya Manch.
It is at Balisahi that the locals had detained the Additional District Magistrate of the area and the Superintendent of Police on June 27 after the administration felled over 1000 trees without the consent of the villagers.
A section of residents of Nuagaon, which was earlier being considered as a panchayat having majority support for the Posco project, have been sitting on dharna at Balisahi for the past several days demanding shifting of the project site to any other location.
“We are not against industrialisation or establishment of the Posco steel plant in our State, but we are against establishment of the project in our locality as it would affect the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people,” said Mr. Swain.
The Manch will continue to oppose the project at the selected site that is spread over three gram panchayats such as Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang, he added.
Meanwhile, the residents of Dhinkia and Gobindpur villages continued with their dharna and human barricade outside Gobindpur village under the banner of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti.
