About 3000 tribals today held a rally at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district to lodge their protest against the activities of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Manch (VVJM), the organization spearheading the protest against Tata Steel's proposed six million tonne steel plant in the area.
Apart from the people displaced by the Tata Steel project, the participants in the rally included industry sympathizers and panchayat level representatives
Their main demands included immediate arrest of VVJM supporters who were involved in the murder of Sridhar Soy, a local tribal and free access to some villages dominated by VVJM.
The agitators had come to the Kalinganagar police station in a procession which started from Madhuban to Duburi chhak, where they shouted slogans against the killers of Soy and demanded their immediate arrest.
Prior to handing over a memorandum in this regard to the Jajpur superintendent of police, they held a protest meet, a stone's throw from the police station. More than 15 speakers from the peripheral villages addressed the meeting.
“We want immediate arrest of the killers of Sridhar Soy, a pro industry supporter who was killed and whose body was recovered from a nearby jungle last month. Besides, there should be free access to general public to some of the villages dominated by the VVJM”, said Dhaneswar Soy, one of the agitators.
DS Kuttey, the Jajpur SP said, “The meeting passed off peacefully. They have given a memorandum consisting of a two-point charter of demands. All the accused in Soy's murder case will be arrested and the villages in the steel hub would be accessible for all.”
ll the villagers who attended the meeting simultaneously passed a resolution to boycott the leaders and supporters of VVJM, the release added.
