MP: Leader of agitation against Ken-Betwa river linking project detained, police clear protest site

The Madhya Pradesh Police on Sunday morning detained Amit Bhatnagar, the leader of a protest against the Ken-Betwa river linking project, among several other demonstrators, The Indian Express reported.

The Ken-Betwa Link Project, said to be India’s first river interlinking initiative, aims to transfer surplus water from the Ken basin to the water-scarce Betwa basin to provide irrigation and drinking water to drought-prone regions of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

However, the project has sparked protests on account of alleged irregularities in land acquisition, rehabilitation and compensation for families affected by the project. The protest had been going on in the Kupi village of Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur district for the past two weeks. Bhatnagar, a social activist, was on an indefinite hunger strike for 14 days.

On Sunday, Chhatarpur Additional Superintendent of Police Aditya Patle told The Indian Express that Bhatnagar was not arrested, but detained, and then taken to the local hospital for treatment. Around 150 protesters were detained and transported to Panna district in buses, the newspaper quoted Patle as saying.

“Our investigation showed these are not people from the locality but from Panna who had issues with other dam projects,” the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “So we detained them and sent them to Panna.”

Before his detention, Bhatnagar told The Indian Express...

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