The Orissa government on Monday ordered an inquiry into the use of children as human shields by groups protesting the Posco project in the state.
State women and child development minister Anjali Behera said the Jagatsinghpur District Social Welfare Officer (DSWO) had been directed to conduct an inquiry and report within 24 hours. ?Use of children as human shield amounts to misuse of children,? said the minister. She said media reports had suggested that the children were asked to sleep on hot sand and even sit through heavy showers. ?This is inhuman,? she added.
?We will take action against anti-Posco groups if the inquiry finds that the children have been tortured,? said Behera.
The state school and mass education department is also looking into the allegation that the children were not allowed to go to their schools.
The Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) is allegedly using the children to make a human shield against the district officials and the police trying to enter the Gobindpur-Dhinkia area for land acquisition. Hundreds of children and women are sleeping on the sand blocking the road that leads to the area.
Paradip Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Saroj Kanta Choudhry, who is supervising the land acquisition process, said the civil society should intervene and prevent the use of children in the agitation.
PPSS convenor Abhaya Sabhu, however, justified children joining the agitation. ?We have involved the children in the agitation to counter the state’s brute force, which is trying to forcibly acquire land in our area,? he said.
Civil society leader Swami Agnivesh, who visited the site on Saturday, said there was nothing wrong in children taking up the cause of their parents. ?The children are accompanied by their parents and seniors of the villages,? he said.
Even though the district administration continued to keep the land acquisition process suspended for the ninth day on Monday, the PPSS carried on with its agitation programme. Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar visited the protest site on Monday and spoke to the villagers facing displacement. ?The government should refrain from forceful land acquisition,? she said.
A 12-member BJP team led by its leader Bimbadhar Kuanra, which had visited the site and held discussions with the villagers, is expected to submit a report to its state and central leaderships soon.