The Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, an organisation of tribals that has been opposing Vedanta’s alumina refinery, on Saturday said it would intensify the agitation.
The announcement came a day after a group of pro-Vedanta organisations approached the Orissa High Court challenging a recent order of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests withdrawing the terms of reference for expansion of the capacity of the refinery from one million to six million tonnes per annum.
In a statement, samiti leader Lingaraj Azad alleged that Vedanta had stage-managed the petitions in the guise of public interest litigation.
While a group of tribals was filing petitions in the High Court in Cuttack on Friday, many tribal people were severely beaten up by security personnel who carried out a combing operation in the hamlets in the Niyamgiri hills. Two persons were taken into custody, Mr. Azad alleged.
“Vedanta was carrying out an illegal expansion of its refinery and has caused massive pollution in the area which has been highlighted in great detail by the N.C. Saxena report as well as many other independent reports. But the company has been trying to divert attention from its misdeeds by engineering acts like yesterday’s [Friday’s] PIL, and at the same time it has been suppressing genuine local voices by using goondas and the police. It is clear that such combing operations are carried out exactly at a time when it suits Vedanta the most.”
The samiti, even as it intensified its peaceful protest, would also bring to light Vedanta’s role in filing petitions in the court, Mr. Azad said.