A crude bomb exploded in a village in eastern India, killing three people involved in protests against a $12 billion steel plant project by South Korean giant Posco, police said Sunday.
Police claimed the dead victims were suspected of making bombs themselves when one of them exploded Saturday in Patana village in Orissa state, but a protest group spokesman said they were attacked by supporters of the project.
“Three people died and one was crucially injured when the crude bomb went off. We suspect that the protesters were making bombs and one might have accidentally exploded,” district superintendent Satyabrata Bhoi told AFP.
The village has been the epicentre of protests since Posco — the world’s fourth-biggest steelmaker by output — signed a pact with the state government in 2005 for the plant on 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of land.
