Paradip, March 2: Four persons were reportedly killed following a blast at Patana village in the proposed Posco steel project area late this evening.

Jagatsinghpur superintendent of police Satyabrata Bhoi said: “We have received report of four casualties following the explosion. The blast occurred at the backyard of a house at Patana village. The police forces have rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation. As per the preliminary investigation, the blast took place during the course of making of country-made bombs.”

The Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, the outfit spearheading the resistance movement against the steel venture charged that members of a pro-Posco outfit lobbed bombs at their activists, while the police maintained that the mishap occurred when the victims were manufacturing bombs.

The deceased persons, according to the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti spokesman Prasant Paikray, are Manas Jena, 32, Nabanu Mandal, 35, Narahari Sahu, 38, and Laxman Pramanik, 35. Paikray termed the accident as a “dastardly and murderous attack” on the people’s resistance movement against Posco.