Thaindian News

Bhubaneswar, Aug 21 (IANS) Anti-Posco leader Abhaya Sahu, who was arrested in October last year for his alleged involvement in several crimes, was released from jail Friday, a day after the Orissa High Court granted him bail, police said.
Hundreds of Sahu’s supporters garlanded him with flowers and shouted slogans in his praise as he came out of the Chaudwar jail in Cuttack district, some 30 km from here, in the evening, police said.

He was also taken in a procession on a motorcycle to the office of the Communist Party of India (CPI) in Bhubaneswar. Soon after his release, Sahu, who is also a senior CPI leader, told reporters that he would continue his fight against South Korean steel major Posco’s proposed steel plant in Jagatsinghpur district.

“We will not give one inch of land to the company,” Sahu told IANS.

Sahu is the president of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), which has been spearheading a movement against the setting up of the steel plant.

Police had slapped at least 36 criminal cases against him. While he got bail in 35 cases in different courts earlier, the high court at Cuttack granted conditional bail in the last case Thursday, his lawyer Jagannath Patnaik told IANS.

Police say Sahu was accused of committing several crimes including dacoity, murder, robbery, attack on villagers, government officials and properties. However, human rights activists describe the allegations against him as false and allege he was framed for opposing the Posco project.

Posco, one of the world’s biggest steel makers, signed a deal with the Orissa government in June 2005 to set up a $12 billion plant near the port town of Paradeep in the coastal district of Jagatsinghpur, some 100 km from here, by 2016.

There has been no significant progress since then in the project, the largest foreign direct investment in India, due to local opposition.

Over 20,000 people from around 15 villages, including Dhinkia, Gada Kujanga and Nuagaon, are protesting the project, saying it will displace them and ruin their betel leaf farming. Posco, however, says the proposed plant would affect only 500 families but create thousands of jobs instead.