Thirty people from Dhinkia sustained injuries after police baton-charged agitators trying to protect their betel vineyards from acquisition for JSW project
The protest in Bhubaneswar. Photo provided by Ashis Senapati The residents of Dhinkia village in Odisha’s Jagatsinghpur district organised a ‘Black Day’ at PMG Square in Bhubaneswar on January 14, 2024, on the second anniversary of the brutal attack on them by armed police.
Around 30 villagers — including 20 women and children — sustained injuries on January 14, 2022, when police lathi-charged anti-Jindal Steel Works (JSW) Ltd agitators trying to protect their betel vineyards from acquisition by officials under police protection.
The villagers had been opposing the government’s plan to acquire land and betel vineyards for JSW Steel Ltd to set up a 13.2 million tonne per annum (MTPA) steel plant in the seaside Gram Panchayats of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang.
On January 14, 2022, large numbers of armed police broke the wooden barricades constructed by the villagers. They entered Dhinkia to dismantle the betel vineyards. The cops then baton-charged the agitators, causing many to be injured.
Debendra Swain, former Panchayat Samiti member of Dhinkia and leader of the agitation against the JSW project, has been in jail since the last two years.
“The police attack is condemnable. A large number of villagers sustained injuries as the police used batons to disperse them. But the government is yet to take any action against the attackers,” Prasant Paikray, the spokesperson of JSW Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (JSWPSS), alleged.
Read Dhinkia on the boil: Odisha Police turn violent against protestors
“The state government forcefully acquired lands in Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakujang Gram Panchayats by claiming that the steel plant was for public purposes. But the Supreme Court, in its 2016 judgment on the acquisition of land for the Tata Group in West Bengal’s Singur, had said the acquisition was not for a public purpose. It also directed that the land be returned to farmers. The court also allowed Singur’s farmers to keep the compensation amount which they received from Tata. We too hope the government will return the land acquired by them to the farmers in Dhinkia and other villages soon,” he added.
“We have been eking out our livelihoods by raising betel vines. But the officials are trying to dismantle the vines. We will fight against JSW till the end,” Ngendra Jena, a farmer of Dhinkia, told this reporter.
JSW Utkal Steel Ltd (JUSL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of JSW Steel Ltd, and part of the $13 billion JSW Group had received environmental clearance (EC) for setting up a greenfield Integrated Steel Plant (ISP) of 13.2 MTPA crude steel in 2022 from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
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