Anti-Posco leader Abhay Sahu was arrested from Bhubaneswar in connection with a bomb blast case at Posco’s proposed steel plant site in Jagatsinghpur district.
Acting on intelligence reports, a police team of Jagatsinghpur district reached the Bhubaneswar airport and arrested the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) leader before he could leave for Coimbatore for attending a conference, said Satyabrata Bhoi, superintendent of police, Jagatsinghpur.
Bhoi said there were four cases against Sahu of which he had already got bail in three from the Odisha high court.
Later in the day, the district police produced Sahu before the Kujanga judicial magistrate. The magistrate, after rejecting his bail plea, remanded Sahu to police custody for 14 days.
Sahu, who has been leading an agitation under the banner of PPSS against the mega steel project since 2005, had been arrested more than two years back in connection with various offences.
In March this year, three persons were killed and one was injured in a crude bomb explosion in Patana village under Dhinkia panchayat, known to be a bastion of the anti-Posco group.
Police claimed they had seized gun powder, razor blades and other explosives such as phosphorus from the area that indicated the deceased were engaged in crude bomb-making to halt the land aqcusition process. The claim was refuted by the PPSS.
"The bombs were targeted at the place I live in. It all happened because of the police presence in the area," Sahu had said previously.
