Land acquisition: 5 parties stage demonstration

BHUBANESWAR: Activists of the five political parties, opposing the proposed steel project of Posco near Paradip, today staged a demonstration against the ‘forcible’ land acquisition for the plant in front of the State Secretariat. A large number of activists of the CPI, CPM, Forward Bloc, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Samajwadi Party courted arrest by breaking the police cordon. A rally from the Master Canteen Square to the lower PMG Square was also taken out. Jagatsinghpur MP Bibhu Prasad Tarai, CPI State secretary Dibakar Nayak, assistant secretary Asish Kanungo, CPI MLA from Chhatrapur Adikand Sethi, former MLA Narayan Reddy, CPM State secretariat members Santosh Das, Dusmanta Das, Suresh Panigrahi and Nabakishore Mohanty, Forward Bloc State secretary Santosh Mitra, RJD State secretary Arun Jena and Samajwadi Party State secretary D Hemant Kumar were arrested while breaking the police cordon. Leaders asked the State Government to maintain restraint during land acquisition for the Posco plant. They said that next course of action would be announced soon.