People opposing the Posco India steel project near Paradip on Tuesday gheraoed the local Jagatsinghpur district collector and superintendent of police as they tried to continue the land acquisition work for the `52,000-crore project by using force.
The two top officials, who are camping in the project site since Sunday, were held up by the agitated people at Gobinpur for nearly one hour before being rescued by a visiting delegation of the state BJP leaders. The BJP leaders led by party’s vice-president Ashok Sahu pacified the anti-displacement people, assuring them that they would back their movement against forcible eviction from their farm lands.
Sources said the people who gheraoed collector Satya Kumar Mallick and SP Satyabrata Bhoi belonged to Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), a CPI-backed organisation that has been leading the agitation against the South Korean steel major since 2005.
The sources added that the police was planning to arrest the PPSS president Abhaya Sahoo to neutralise the fresh movementthat resumed on Sunday nearly after a year. Besides, it was contemplating a mass arrest of PPSS activists on Tuesday night.