BHUBANESWAR: The Jagatsinghpur district police on Saturday registered a case against the villagers who held two employees of POSCO hostage and damaged their vehicle on Friday.

According to Jagatsinghpur Superintendent of Police Y.K. Jethwa, a case had been registered at the Kujang police station on the basis of a complaint filed by Amjad Khan, driver of the hired vehicle that POSCO employees used to visit Dhinkia gram panchayat, to hold discussion with the villagers about the proposed steel plant.

President of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti Abhay Sahu has been named as the prime accused in the case, Mr Jethwa said while adding that the accused persons would be arrested whenever they came out of the villages where the anti-POSCO activists had put up barricades to prevent the entry of police and company officials. The charges under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for taking the two employees hostage, damaging the vehicle and stealing of certain items from the car have been levelled against the accused persons.

Two employees of the company, Chaudhury Pranabananda Das and Debashis Swain, were taken hostage by the people at Gobindpur village on Friday afternoon for visiting the area despite resistance to the steel project from the locals. The agitators, however, allowed another woman employee of the company and driver of the vehicle to return to Kujang.

Undertaking

Sangram Samiti leaders released Mr. Das and Mr. Swain late in the night only after Y.K. Kim, General Managing (Land Acquisition and Development), POSCO-India, talked to Mr. Sahu over the phone and the two employees gave an undertaking that they will not enter the villages under the three panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang in future.

Meanwhile, a senior company official said in Bhubaneswar that the company would continue to hold dialogue with the people who were supporting the project and also make attempts to convince those who were opposing the venture.

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