Rourkela, Sept. 26: Around 150 persons under the aegis of 32 Mauja Bisthapita Manch today laid siege to the office of additional district magistrate Manisha Banerjee here.

The agitators claimed to have been displaced for setting up of the Rourkela Steel Plant, and they wanted their land back.

Around 9.30 this morning, the manch members started surrounding the office. An eyewitness said: "They surrounded the office and suddenly locked the front slide grill and rest of the rooms, including the additional district magistrate's chamber. Then they started shouting slogans."

Another eyewitness said everything happened so fast that no one could respond to what was going on. However, the demonstrators did not cause damage to the office's property.

Led by Rameshwar Toppo, the agitators submitted a list of demands to the additional district magistrate. It said: "We do not want job in the RSP, but give back our land, 5,000 acres, near the Mandira dam project."

Demanding immediate action on their demands, the protesters threatened that they would continue with their agitation if the government failed to meet them.

Banerjee said: "They have given a five-point demand and the major ones among them cannot be met by me. Only the government can address them, and I have intimated this to the agitators."

Asked whether the administration was thinking about forcibly removing them, she said: "We will decide when the time comes, but interrupting the functioning of a government office is a criminal offence."

The agitators' major demands were: return of the excess 5,000 acres, which the steel plant had already gave back to the government, and in due course, the government sold them to private parties; legal action against the fake ones, who had got jobs as displaced persons; refund of the land acquired for the Mamdira dam project to its original owners.

Toppo said: "We will continue with our peaceful demonstration till we get back our land." The siege was on till the report was filed.