Thousands protest displacement in Orissa

BHUBANESWAR - More than 2,000 men and women, majority of them tribals, held a meeting in Orissa’s Jajpur district Wednesday to protest forcible displacement of people by the government for various steel, power and other industrial projects in the state, the organisers said.

Tribal leaders, human rights activists and anti-displacement leaders from across the state participated in the meeting held near the industrial complex at Kalinganagar, some 120 km from here.

“We condemn the way the state government is forcibly displacing people in recent months from their homeland, using goons for various projects,” human rights activist and Lokashakti Abhiyan president Prafulla Samantray said.

Addressing the meeting, K.N. Ramachandran, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), said the state government is dancing to the tune of many companies who are hell bent on looting the mines.

The gathering was organised by Visthapan Virodhi Jana Manch (VVJM)- an anti-land acquisition group which has been spearheading agitation against Tata Steel’s six million tonnes per annum integrated steel plant in the area.