(Top) Villagers intercept vehicles carrying the personnel and armed police at Mahaveerpitha in Nuagaon, the proposed Posco area. Telegraph pictures

Paradip, Sept. 5: Angry local residents opposing the proposed Posco steel venture held an official of the company, besides nine other personnel of state-run Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Idco), hostage for over five hours today.

Tension mounted as a mob intercepted the vehicles carrying the personnel and detained them near Mahaveer Pitha under Nuagaon gram panchayat.

“The angry crowd detained Posco India’s deputy general manager S.N. Singh. Later, they also stopped Idco personnel. The mob also snatched away sawing machines that were being used for felling the trees,” said inspector of Kujang police station Gupteswar Bhoi.

The situation had turned tense as the personnel were detained for over five hours. The police had to rush to the spot to release them at about 4.45pm.

The detained personnel were safe and protesters did not cause any physical harm to them, said police sources.

“Though people detained us and stopped us from moving out of the place, they were quite hospitable. They did not misbehave with us. They were raising certain demands. I had tried to explain them that it is up to the state government to announce the revised package. The company is ready to compensate the genuine loss of livelihood stakes of the people,” said Singh, Posco’s deputy general manager.

“Villagers kept the personnel under detention as they were angry over the ongoing tree-felling exercise without their consent. The administration had assured that that everything would be done with consensus. But the project was being carried out without people’s consent. Their long-standing demands on rehabilitation package revision are still not fulfilled, which is fuelling anger among them. The detained personnel were released after they gave us a written undertaking that they would refrain from doing such things in future,” said Dhirendra Pallei, working president, United Action Committee (UAC), which has been demanding a revised compensation and rehabilitation package.

“People here are seething in anger over the non-fulfilment of demands. They would break law and stop the land acquisition exercise till the rehabilitation package is revised,” said Nirvaya Samantaray, general secretary of the UAC.

Additional district magistrate, Surajeet Das, however, said the six-point demands raised by them would be duly discussed at the Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC). “The protesting people would have to patiently wait for the proposed meeting,” he said.