Hazaribag: Former Barkagaon legislators Yogendra Sao and his wife Nirmala Devi were released from Keredari police station with five others on a PR bond on Friday. The former lawmakers were arrested on Thursday for sitting in a dharna with locals outside the NTPC’s Chatti-Bariatu coal mines and halting work.“Yogendra Sao, Nirmala Devi and five others were arrested and kept at the police station before being released on PR bond,” Ganesh Kumar, the officer-in-charge of Keredari police station, said.Sao and his wife led an agitation since January this year over the PSU’s alleged failure to adequately compensate the displaced families of Chatti-Bariatu and Keredari. “After a long agitation, the closed NTPC mines at the two sites were reopened for operations by the district administration using a large police contingent,” a NTPC official told TOI, requesting anonymity.Soon after work resumed at the mines on Thursday, Sao and Nirmala sat on a dharna again with a few displaced families and stopped work at the coal mines. Then a police team led by Barkagaon subdivisional police officer Pawan Kumar reached the spot and arrested the couple and five others for obstructing NTPC’s mining operations. They were then taken to Keredari police station.The couple’s arrest sparked resentment among the locals. Amba Prasad, the daughter of the couple and a former Barkagaon MLA herself, began demanding their released. Amba, now general secretary of the Congress, claimed that the leaders were arrested by the police without holding any tripartite meeting and termed the arrests illegal, as the dharna was peaceful.Sources in the PSU claimed that the agitations led to collective losses to the tune of Rs 11 crore since Jan. A spokesperson of the NTPC said coal production and dispatch started amid police security. “The situation remained normal on Friday,” the official said.
