Bhubaneswar:
The tension over POSCO land acquisition is once again simmering. The police force has marched into Govindpur, the area where protests against the land acquisition for setting up of the steel plant have been going on, asking the agitators to leave.
Twelve platoons of police have been deployed and the administration has declared the human barricade formed by the protesters illegal.
And in a fresh turn of events, five platoons of the police force have also been deployed in Polang as pro-POSCO groups turned hostile, and threatened to stop all construction work in the area.
The villagers have been protesting against the land being acquired in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district for a proposed steel plant to be setup by the Korean steel giant Pohang Steel Corporation (POSCO).
While a determined state government has accused the POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), a body spearheading agitation, of using the children as a "shield", the villagers sought to differ.
"We involve children in the agitation to counter the state's brute force which is trying to forcibly acquire land without consent of the farmers." PPSS President Abhay Sahu said.
About 300 children are leading the anti-POSCO agitation for last 12 days as the state government deployed more than 600 armed security personnel to enter into Dhinkia gram panchayat, considered as epicentre of the six-year-old anti-displacement movement.
"I believe the children should never be used in agitation. The persons, be it their parents, should be held responsible for using them in this manner," Orissa's Women and Child Development (WCD) minister Anjali Behera said.