CPI MP held in Orissa over Posco protest

BHUBANESWAR - A Communist Party of India (CPI) MP was arrested in Orissa Saturday as he was headed to meet hundreds of villagers opposing a project by South Korean steel major Posco in Jagatsinghpur district, police said.

Bibhu Prasad Tarai, MP from Jagatsinghpur constituency, was held while he was on his way to Dhinkia village.

“We arrested him for apprehension of breach of peace,” District Superintendent of Police Suresh Singh Dev Dutta Singh told IANS.

Tarai, who has been campaigning against the Posco project, said his arrest was illegal and undemocratic. “We will soon launch a statewide agitation against it,” the MP told reporters after his arrest.

Hundreds of villagers, under the banner of Posco Pratirodha Sangram Samiti (PPSS), have blocked a road at Balitutha, considered the entry point to the proposed site, since Jan 26 to prevent the entry of government and company officials to the area.

District authorities Saturday ordered them to vacate the area immediately to initiate steps to acquire land for the project. Nearly 1,000 armed police personnel were deployed in the area.

Posco, one of the world’s biggest steel makers, signed a deal with the Orissa government in June 2005 to set up the project near the port town of Paradip in Jagatsinghpur, some 100 km from here, by 2016.

The steel maker requires about 4,004 acres for the project, of which 2,900 acres are forest land. The project has been delayed for over three years due to various reasons, including protests by locals.

Thousands of villagers have been protesting the project, saying it will displace them from their homeland and ruin their betel-leaf farms. Posco and the government maintain the project will bring prosperity and employment to an impoverished region.

There has been no progress on the ground despite the state receiving final clearance from the union forest and environment ministry for acquiring forest land for the project.