Police remove wooden barricades at Nuagaon village on Saturday. Telegraph pictures

Paradip, Sept. 10: A day after police crackdown, protesters opposing the Posco steel plant project bounced back to confront the authorities.

The barricades, dismantled by the police yesterday, are back in place again stopping officials from making their way into the proposed project areas.

Yesterday, the authorities had launched a crackdown on the protesters’ agitation and arrested seven people while dismantling the wooden and bamboo gates erected by them to stop the officials.

The drastic move was initiated apparently to put to an end to the standoff that has put the authorities in a quandary.

“We were compelled to initiate this measure as officials were being stopped from discharging the duty assigned to them by the state government. They (the protesters) took the law unto their hands and blocked officials’ entry into the project areas. Besides, they were resorting to unlawful activities such as holding officials and company personnel hostage,” said additional district magistrate Surajit Das.

“We removed the barricade at Nuagaon and took into custody three persons. A wooden barricade installed by Gramya Surakhya Committee at Gadakujang was also removed. Four persons were arrested from the spot as they tried to resist,” said sub-divisional police officer Shantanu Kumar Das.

He added that the arrested persons were Niranjan Swain, Pravash Pallei, Achyutananda Das, Srimanta Parida, Bhusan Rout, Tushar Nayak and Narayan Parida. They were booked under sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 431 (mischief by injury to public road and property), 385 (putting person in fear of injury in order to commit extortion) and 469 (forgery for the purpose of harming reputation) of the Indian Penal Code.

The demolition of barricades and arrest of protesters had triggered tension in villages in the project area. Gauging people’s angry mood, the authorities suspended project work today even as fresh barricade gates were put in place to stall the government’s land acquisition and project related work.

Officials, however, came out with a different version for suspension of today’s work. “In view of the flood situation in Jagatsinghpur district, the project work could not be undertaken today. The exercise will resume once the flood situation improves. Any move to thwart the process will be sternly dealt with,” said special land acquisition officer Nrusingha Charan Swain.

The United Action Committee, a pro-Posco outfit that has turned anti-administration over the compensation issue, had stalled the project work for over a week, while Gramya Surakhya Committee, a new outfit, has been staging protests anew for over a month now, much to the authorities’ chagrin.

On September 7, the police had registered cases against UAC working president Dhirendra Pallei and Gadakujang sarpanch Nakul Sahu after the owner of a private construction company lodged a complaint against them. They faced charges of siphoning off labour wages and circulating fake identity cards to labourers in project areas. Both of them, however, are yet to be arrested.

The authorities’ decision of removing barricades and arresting protesters has elicited sharp reaction from those seeking fulfilment of six-point demands for revised compensation and rehabilitation packages.

“The government has backtracked from its commitment to fulfil the six-point charter of demands for revised rehabilitation package. By arresting peaceful agitators, the government shows its real intentions. The protest is spontaneous and the resistance against the project work will gather steam in the coming days,” said UAC working president Dhirendra Pallei.