Agitating land losers of IOCL forcibly evicted

PARADIP: Tension flared up in Abhyachandpur after police forcibly evicted the agitating members of Jamihara Krushak Manch (JKM) from the protest site in front of IOCL Paradip refinery project here on Monday.

As many as 40 members of the Manch, which comprises land losers and those displaced by the project, were forcibly removed from the agitation site by local police for creating law and order situation and blocking traffic at the main gate of the refinery IOCL on Sunday night. As the protestors resisted the cops, a clash broke out in which two land losers sustained minor injuries.

JKM members had been staging a dharna in front of the refinery project since the last four days demanding permanent jobs, employment opportunity for maintenance contractors engaged by IOCL, reduction in environmental pollution and withdrawal of cases against them.

The police action came ahead of the inauguration of a poly-propylene plant of IOCL by Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan on February 6. The cops also vacated the IOCL site for the inauguration programme.

As news of the police action spread, JKM leaders Navin Pradhan, Prakash Tripathy, Chinmayee Sahani and Subash Mohapatra rushed to the agitation site and expressed solidarity with the protesters. They also locked the main gate of IOCL’s administrative office due to which official work at the refinery was affected.

The JKM leaders condemned the police action and termed it unlawful. The action was unwarranted as the agitators were staging dharna in a peaceful and democratic manner, they said.

Meanwhile, meeting between IOCL officials and JKM leaders in presence of Assistant SP Bishnu Charan Mishra, Additional Tehsildar of Kujang Atal Bihari Swain to resolve the issue did not yield any result.
Sources said IOCL officials have assured to provide jobs to land losers at the proposed poly-propylene plant on a contract basis. However, the agitators are demanding permanent job for at least one member of the 1,752 families of 17 villages under Kujang tehsil.  

Four platoons of police force have been deployed at the protest site to avert any untoward situation.