WOMEN and children formed a human barricade to prevent police and officials from entering villages earmarked for a $12bn (£7.4bn) steel plant in India, protesters said yesterday.
Around 1,000 women and children joined the demonstration in Orissa, where South Korean steel giant POSCO’s plans to build the new facility on tribal land have sparked widespread opposition.
“We are going to fight to the finish,” said Abhay Sahu, who heads the anti-POSCO campaign in Jagatsinghpur district, 100 km (60 miles) from state capital Bhubaneshwar.
“We are determined to keep POSCO off our land,” he said, as women and children lay on the ground, their hands linked, at the entrance to the proposed plant site.
Hundreds of police were out in force to oversee the protest, witnesses said.
“The administration has no intentions of using force but the villagers must not provoke the police,” said district administrator Narayan Chandra Jena.
India gave POSCO its final clearance in May to set up the plant on 1,250 hectares (3,100 acres) of forest land in the impoverished state.
The project is one of India’s biggest foreign projects since the launch of market reforms in 1991.
