The Gurudijhatia police arrested 10 persons in connection with the group fight held between supporters and opponents of a proposed cement plant at Athagarh during a public hearing held recently.
The arrested were identified as Santosh Behera, Abhisek Sahoo, Brahmananda Rout,Tapan lenka, Manoranjan Panda, Tarakant Sahoo, Nirmal Parida, laxmidhar Sahoo, Nagendra Nayak and Nandakisor Behera.
The arrested were sent to jail custody after their bail petition was rejected by the SDJM court.
Notably, police had to resort to a lathi charge to control the mob during the public hearing held on Thursday.
Claiming that the arrested persons are workers and supporters of the BJP and they were arrested at the behest of BJD leaders, more than a hundred of saffron party activists led by Biswa Sundar Mishra gheraoed the Gurudijhatia police station. They demanded that ruling party workers named in the FIR be arrested soon.
BJP State Mahila Morcha secretary Rashmirekha Das, Yuba Morcha VP Sikandar Ali, Swagatika Pattnaik, Bikram Dash, Prakash Sethi, Ila Panda, Shankarsan Mohanty, Saroj Rana, Jagadananda Tripathy, Jharana Parida, Umesh Samal, Nimain Charan Rout, Ranjan Senapati, Sarat Pradhan and Debaraj Sahoo participated.
A platoon of police force was deployed to maintain law and order, said Gurudijhatia PS IIC Anadi Charan Sethi.