Wooden barricades built at nuagaon to stop posco officials from entering the project area on Monday. Telegraph Picture

Paradip, Feb. 17: A day after violent protests, angry villagers further intensified their agitation in the proposed Posco steel project site.

People, mostly from Nuagaon village, today erected bamboo and wooden barricades at three places to prevent officials and police from entering the proposed site of the steel plant.

“People have voiced their pent up anger. Posco had started the construction of boundary wall two months ago with the help of the district administration. They did not fulfil our earlier demands for which villagers dismantled the boundary wall on Sunday and erected wooden barricades today to prevent officials from entering our villages,” said Tamil Pradhan, a local resident.

“The decision of Posco to build boundary wall has infuriated villagers. To protest against the construction of the boundary wall, we erected barriers. Only government and Posco officials will not be allowed to enter into the villages,” he added.

However, he said that some outsiders torched Posco office in Nuagaon on Sunday to defame them.

“Residents, including women and children, are patrolling near the gates 24X7. This will continue until the project is scrapped,” said Ranjan Jena, a villager of Nuagaon.

“Earlier, we supported the move of the state government to hand over the land in our areas to build the steel plant. But, now all the villagers are together opposing the steel plant,” said Basanta Jena of Nuagaon.

“United Action Committee (UAC) was formed five years ago to support industrialisation in our areas. But the authorities failed to fulfil our six-points of our demands for which large numbers of villagers are now determined to prevent Posco to build its steel plant. Unless and until our six demands are met, we will not allow any work in the area,” said Nirvaya Samantray, the general secretary of UAC.

Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti and Bhitamati Surakhya Manch supported the anti- steel plant movement of the villagers of Nuagaon gram panchayat.

“We are happy that the villagers of Nuagaon have united to fight against the project. Earlier, some ruling party leaders misled them and so they were supporting Posco. We are ready to extend all our help to them,” said Sishir Mohapatra, general secretary of the samiti.

Inspector in charge of Abhayachandapur police station, Aniruddha Routray, on the other hand, said that officials of S.S. Construction Company entrusted to build the boundary wall filed a complaint with the police today against villagers who carried out the demolition job.

Some employees of Posco also filed another complaint alleging that villagers had assaulted them and torched their office in Nuagaon.

“We have filed two cases against some villagers. Investigation is on and all the accused persons will be arrested soon,” said the police.