ROURKELA: An agitation against a new railway line project of the Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) at Barkani, about 7 km from Bisra Square in Rourkela, turned fatal as one man died and another was injured after jumping before a JCB excavator on Saturday.
Sources said local villagers, who have been protesting the railway line work, had physically prevented workers from kick-starting the construction of the line from RSP to Dumerta via Barkani on Friday.
The incident took place when the work was about to resume with police support on Saturday and the irate villagers obstructed the slowly approaching excavator vehicle. A commotion ensued following which an agitator Eto Ekka (37) died after coming under the wheels of the excavator, while another agitator was injured after being hit by the excavator’s front bucket. The injured agitator was rushed to hospital by police.
Sources said the situation flared up with angry protesters resorting to stone pelting on police and administrative officers following the death of the agitator, leaving at least 11, including eight policemen, one executive magistrate, excavator driver and others injured. Among the injured was Bisra additional tehsildar Purushottam Naik who was deputed as executive magistrate.
The situation continued to be extremely tense with villagers detaining the body at the spot, while additional police forces guarded the locality. The protesting villagers demanded senior authorities of the government and Sundargarh district administration to come to the spot and settle the pending land acquisition issues of the RSP lingering for decades. They also demanded compensation for the deceased agitator and action against those responsible for his death.
For the past two months, work was underway for restoration of a defunct 4-km rail line of the RSP and the villagers had been holding parallel protests nearby peacefully. The RSP has planned to lay a new double line parallel to the defunct line for which acquisition of about 2.5 acres of private land is required while the remaining land falling on the project alignment is claimed to be either government land or acquired by the RSP more than six decades ago.
The RSP has also deposited about Rs 132 crore with the South Eastern Railway (SER) for the project. The agitators got angry when the attempt was made to start work on the new rail line project. Barkani villagers claimed the land belonged to their ancestors and they have not yet received any compensation or rehabilitation and resettlement benefits from RSP.
DIG of Police (Western Range) Brijesh Kumar Rai confirmed at least eight police personnel were injured in the clash, adding additional police forces have been deployed and efforts are underway to restore normalcy.
Earlier, people had held a massive protest for 36 hours at the nearby Kukudagate level-crossing over a similar land dispute relating to the RSP and SER disrupting train movement on the Howrah-Mumbai main line in 2006.