Police lathicharge a protester at Kurba village in Aurangabad on Saturday. Picture by Sanjay Choudhary

Patna, Jan. 15: Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s ambitious power plans suffered a jolt when a group of farmers, pro- testing against acquisition of their land for setting up the 1320MW Nabinagar power plant in the Naxalite-hit Aurangabad district, indulged in arson and vandalism at Akura railway station today.

Over a dozen people suffered serious injuries when the police used force to disperse the mob, which set afire the engine of a passenger train and ransacked the railway station.

One of the injured persons reportedly succumbed to his injuries, though the police claimed that the victim had died in a different incident.

The trouble began around 1.30pm when a team of police officers reached Kurba village for erecting boundary wall on the land acquired for the power plant to be set up under a joint venture of the Bihar government and the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC).

The farmers alleged that they had been paid compensation far less than other villages in the same district.

Initially, the officials tried to persuade the agitating farmers but the latter were not in a mood to relent. A section of the agitators reached Akura railway station, about 1km from Kurba, and set the engine of a passenger train on fire. Apprehending that the situation may go out of control, the Barun police station, under which the area falls, sought additional force from the district headquarters.

The police later caned the mob at the railway station causing injuries to over a dozen protesters. “The police resorted to lathicharge to bring the situation under control,” said sub-divisional officer K.B. Prajwal.

Aurangabad superintendent of police Vivek Raj Singh said that additional police forces had been deployed at the village to prevent any untoward incident.

“The situation is tense but under control,” he said. He, however, denied the report that one of the protesters died in the lathicharge.

“The body recovered from the area is not related to Saturday’s agitation,” he told The Telegraph over the phone.

Bihar DGP Neel Mani said: “S.H. Prajapati, an old man, died of cold in the district last night. Reports about him getting killed in the lathicharge are incorrect.”

Sources said that a memorandum of understanding was signed between the officials of the Bihar State Electricity Board and the NTPC in Patna on January 4 in the presence energy minister Vijendra Prasad Yadav. The government has acquired 1800 acres for setting up the power plant.