Tension mounted near Dhinkia village in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district on Friday after several villagers protesting against the proposed JSW steel plant were injured in a police lathi-charge.
Tension ran high near Dhinkia village in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district following clashes between villagers and police at the proposed steel plant site of Jindal Steel Works (JSW) during the eviction of betel vine plantations on Friday.
After witnessing years of protest against the proposed Posco steel plant, resulting in forcing the mega project to withdraw from Odisha in 2017, the sandy lanes of the village are on the boil once again.
Following the withdrawal of South Korean global steel major Posco, the state government had handed the land acquired for the project to JSW for its proposed integrated steel plant.
Debendra Swain, a former Panchayat Samiti member, who was spearheading the agitation against JSW’s proposed project, was arrested along with Narendra Mohanty following the clash.
We were prevented from going to our betel vines by the police. When the villagers said that they must go to the betel vines, the police resorted to lathi charge without any provocation,” Swain said before being taken to police custody.
He claimed that 40 people were injured in police action. Eight of them were children in the age group of 9 to 11 years and 11 were above 60 years.
Swain alleged that even the injured persons were not taken to the hospital by the police.
The women of Dhinkia village had earlier thwarted the police’s attempt to arrest Debendra Swain, after hundreds of them had instantly rallied around to force the police to leave the village, earlier on a few occasions.
“The police officials beat us mercilessly, they have taken money from Jindal,” alleged Subhasmita Satpathy, a class VII girl, while inconsolabely crying.
“Our only mistake is we are fighting for our land and house. One of our friends with kidney problem has also been thrashed badly, while she fell on the ground,” added Subhasmita.
The government has planned to allot land to JSW for its Rs 55,000 crore project from various villages, barring Dhinkia.
The demolition drive was undertaken without consultation and non-fulfilment of our demands, said an elderly woman resident of Dhinkia village.
She also alleged that demolition was arbitrary and part of the administration’s ploy to expedite land acquisition for the project.
Till Wednesday, over Rs 5 crore had been disbursed to 198 beneficiaries for demolition of betel vines.
Umesh Panda, Additional SP, Jagatsinghpur told India Today that more than 500 villagers, including women, took part in the rally.
“We asked them for the license (permission for protest) as per Covid guidelines but they were unable to show any license. Instead they shoved and pushed the police officials present there,” Panda said.
“For nearly two hours, police tried to convince them to return but they snatched lathis and body armour from police and attacked a lady constable, causing her hands to fracture, following which we applied minimal force to disperse the crowd by means of lathicharge,” Panda added.
