BARKANI, SUNDARGARH — The protest was on their own farmland. The police came at 7 am.
On Monday, thousands of police and paramilitary personnel surrounded a sit-in dharna in Barkani village under Bondamunda police limits, Rourkela, Odisha's Sundargarh district, where Oraon, Munda, Kisan and Ho Adivasi families have been resisting Rourkela Steel Plant's (RSP) second double-track rail line for over two years.
According to Maktoob Media's Nikita Jain who reported from ground, villagers were sitting where construction for RSP's track from its plant to Dumerta station was underway. RSP, one of India's oldest steel plants built in 1950s-60s, wants to bypass congested Bondamunda yard on Howrah-Mumbai main line to carry raw materials from Koida mines directly. The new line needs 2 km restoration of defunct track plus a parallel line, with 3.2 km of concrete walls.
For Barkani, that means loss of paddy fields that survived the first displacement in 1954 when Rourkela displaced 15,000 tribals.
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"They started pushing us out of the protest site, not even sparing children and women, both young and old," Pandu, a Barkani resident, told Maktoob. “They were abusing us and telling us to protest somewhere else.”
Videos show old women being dragged by arms into police vans. Among those detained was a 15-year-old Class 9 girl who had merely stepped out of home to see the commotion, villagers said. At 8 pm Monday she was still detained at Bondamunda police station with her parents, Pandu said. OrissaPOST confirmed several villagers detained Monday morning, construction continued under police and magistrate supervision.
This is not new. On April 19, 2025, Etua Oram alias Eto Ekka, 37, was crushed to death by a JCB during an eviction drive for same rail line. Police said 19 officials injured in stone pelting, eight platoons deployed. Work stalled 18 months after that death. In March 2022, 22 Barkani protesters including activist Deme Oram were jailed under attempt to murder charges that lawyers called fabricated to complete the railway.
Sunil Khalko of Fifth Schedule Union said police are crushing peaceful protest.
Legally, Sundargarh is Fifth Schedule area. PESA requires Gram Sabha consent for land acquisition, even for government project. RSP says track is on RSP land, no houses. Villagers say it is community farmland under cultivation for generations without patta — classic Rourkela legacy where compensation never came.
RSP plans expansion from 4.65 MTPA to 9.8 MTPA by 2031-32 with Rs 30,000 crore investment. For that it needs this 8-km line. Without it, rakes go through Bondamunda. With it, steel moves faster.
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But at what cost? In 1956, Rourkela's Germans built a plant. In 2026, its expansion drags women. The girl in 9th standard who was detained wanted to see why police came to her field. She learned instead how development sees children when they are Adivasi — as encroachers to be picked up.
Sundargarh SP and RSP have not commented on child detention.
*Tags:* #Barkani #RourkelaSteelPlant #Adivasi #Sundargarh #Odisha #FifthSchedule #PESA #Bondamunda #TribalRights #LandAcquisition