An employee of a construction firm, engaged for building the controversial coastal road linking the port town with the proposed Posco steel plant site, was arrested in Chattisgarh on Friday in connection with a clash in the Posco project area, police said.
Nine days after the violence on December 14 that claimed the life of one person and injured 25 others, a police team from Odisha nabbed Sharkhel, an employee of Paradip Paribahan Company, from a hotel at Raipur in Chhattisgarh in the early hours on Friday, the police said.
With this the number of people arrested in connection with the incident rose to six.
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Steps are being taken to bring Mr. Sharkhel to Odisha, against whom an FIR had been filed at the Kujang police station near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district naming him as an accused in the December 14 clash, they said.
Police had earlier raided the office of Mr. Sharkel on the basis of the FIR, police said.
Other cases were also pending against him in different police stations in Jagatsinghpur district, the police said.
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Mr. Sharkel was one of the accused in the clash between the anti-Posco brigade and the contractor group. The incident had sparked uproar in the State Assembly.
As the news of Mr. Sharkhel’s arrest spread, a group of miscreants believed to be his supporters stormed into the IOC refinery campus at Paradip and indulged in vandalism. Alleging that Mr. Sharkhel was framed in a false case, they demanded withdrawal of charges against him.