Paradip, June 8: Dhinkia is beginning to look like a battle zone with families threatened by displacement gathering at the gram panchayat borders to face police and government officials, who are gearing up to demolish their betel vineyards.

Hundreds of people today squatted on the Gobindapur village border.

Last week they had seen officials making the first attempt to acquire a betel vineyard in Gobindapur, an anti-Posco bastion.

“Over 2,000 residents of Dhinkia GP turned up to form a human barricade. In all likelihood, the people would offer stiff resistance,” said a police officer.

“We are keeping a close watch. Land acquisition would begin after the exercise concludes in the neighbouring Nuagaon gram panchayat. We want to carry out the acquisition work by using minimum force,” said Jagatsinghpur superintendent of police, S. Devidatta Singh.

“People here are ready to lay down their lives. Let the government put up the project over our bodies,” said Sisir Kumar Mahapatra, general secretary, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti.

Huge contingents of armed police are camping at Kujang, Balitutha, Gadakujang and Paradip.

“The police are ready to assist land acquisition officials in carrying out their work. They police are intent on maintaining peace. In the event of an exigency, the police would use minimum force,” said Shantanu Kumar Das, sub-divisional police officer, Paradip.

Meanwhile, today the last leg of land acquisition work in Nuagaon gram panchayat was marred by a show of protest from about a dozen betel vineyard owners.

“Our betel vines were demolished. But the officials refused to pay us compensation on the grounds that these were not enlisted under the 2010 socio-economic survey. Injustice has been meted out to us. We are going to sit on hunger strike,” said Salabega Sethy, a betel vines grower from Nuagaon.

However, Saroj Kanta Choudhury, the additional district magistrate of Paradip, said: “We pulled down over a dozen betel vineyards in Nuagaon. The growers had raised the vineyards recently just to be covered under the compensation scheme. That’s why we rejected their pleas for compensation.”

Today, acquisition of betel vineyards that come under encroached forestland in Gadakujang and Nuagaon gram panchayats has come to an end with the pulling down of 31 betel vines. A sum of Rs 30lakh was paid to 17 land losers. We stopped paying compensation cheques to 14 betel vineyard owners as they brought up the vineyards only months ago to grab the compensation. They were not genuine betel vine growers, Choudhury, ADM, Paradip maintained.

From 18 May when the land acquisition work resumed, 66 acre of encroached forestland has so far been acquired with the dismantling of 662 betel vineyards after the land acquired. Rs 6.99 crore has been disbursed in form of account-payee cheque to 661 landlosers so far”, said ADM Choudhury. Barring some disputes over the ownership of betel vineyards, the acquisition process was smooth and orderly with all land losers today willingly giving away their vineyards, he added.