Tension prevails at Kalinga Nagar, Posco steel project sites

Bhubaneswar: Tension prevails in both Kalinga Nagar industrial estate and Posco project sites in Orissa
with the armed police making last minute attempts to clear the areas of the local residents to facilitate establishment of Tata Steel and Posco India’s steel projects.

The situation, which continues to remain tense after police opened firing on the local people at the two sites last week, turned volatile on Monday as the leaders of the opposition parties pledged their support for the anti-displacement activists.

“The Orissa government has literarily declared a war on the local people who are opposing displacement from their ancestral lands. Police is killing those opposing displacement mercilessly. This is no governance,” BJP Rajya Sabha member Balbir Punj, who led a three-member BJP Parliamentary team, to the trouble-torn Kalinga Nagar and Posco project site told reporters here.

The two other members of the team were Nishikant Dubey and Rudra Narayan Pany.

The Congress on Monday also launched scathing attack on the ruling BJD saying “its primary business was man hunting to grab land.”

“Ever since this government came, it has been indulging in killing spree of people, including tribals to acquire land for private companies. It does not spare even opposition leaders who try to resist it tyranny,” Orissa Pradesh Congress president Sibananda Ray said.

He cited that party leader Umesh Chandra Swain and CPI Lok Sabha member Bibhu Prasad Tarai were arrested as they tried to reach out the people injured in police lathi-chrage at Posco project site near Paradip.

The Congress has constituted two fact finding teams to conduct study into the police firing incidents at Kalinga Nagar and Posco project site. Each team consists of three members. While the first is headed by former law minister Narasingha Mishra, the second one will be led by senior party leader Nalini Kanta Mohanty.

Meanwhile, revenue minister S.N. Patra refuted the allegations of police excess and said the opposition was instigating the local people for political gains.

“Those, who are opposing industrilisation, do not want to see Orissa flourishes utilizing its natural resources. We are sure, they would not succeed in their attempt to thwart the progress process started by chief minister Naveen Patnaik,” Mr Patra said.