 | | Victims of the 2006 police firing at Kalinga Nagar |
Debabrata Mohanty
Thu May 13 2010, 00:53
Four years after police bullets killed 13 tribals in Kalinga Nagar industrial complex of Jajpur district during an anti-displacement protest, a tribal was killed and several injured on Wednesday following a clash between police and villagers.
In January 2006, 13 tribals died in police firing while protesting forced displacement for an integrated steel plant by Tata Steel.
Trouble started at the industrial complex at Chandia village when over 500 policemen, including anti-Maoist Special Operations Group personnel, entered the village to evict locals.
Chandia villagers are at the forefront of the movement against the six-million tonne Tata Steel plant being built inside the complex .
When the villagers under the banner of Bisthapan Virodhi Jan Manch (BVJM), the body protesting the forced displacement of the tribals from Kalinga Nagar, came out against the eviction, they were beaten up, sources said.
Rabindra Jarika, secretary, BVJM, said the policemen ordered the villagers to leave the place.
“They said houses of people who do not have record of rights would be demolished. But how many tribals in Orissa have records of land rights? Soon police resorted to lathicharge and fired bullets at us. Laxman Jamuda, 55, was killed in firing while more than a dozen were seriously injured,” said Jarika.
Jajpur SP D S Kutte denied that the death of Jamuda was due to police firing. He said the man hit a boulder on the road while trying to escape. “We only fired rubber bullets to disperse the mob,” he said.
URL:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Orissa-anti-eviction-protest-turns-violent--1-killed-in--police-firing-/618132
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