Hundreds of villagers continued their protest for the fifth day against the proposed Ratnagiri Refinery and Petrochemical Limited at Barsu, claiming that the project would destroy the ecology of the Konkan region and upend their way of life.
They demanded that the State government stop soil survey of the proposed site, and staged protests despite massive police presence. On Tuesday, over 700 protesters were detained and 112 were booked under Sections related to rioting, unlawful assembly and disobedience to public order.
While Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the project would not be implemented without the local people’s consent, and claimed that the on-ground situation was peaceful, the Ratnagiri police detained Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Vinayak Raut after he sat on a road there as a mark of protest, which triggered chaos at the site. Police personnel who were deployed from across the State used tear gas to disperse the protesters.
