Thursday, 06 April , 2006, 10:52
New Delhi: Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) leader Medha Patkar, who was forcibly removed from the spot of her indefinite hunger strike, was under observation at the AIIMS while 27 of her supporters were arrested by the police in an overnight swoop.
However, police maintained that Patkar, agitating for the resettlement rights of people displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), has not been arrested. Read: Medha Patkar ‘critical’, hospitalised
Doctors at the AIIMS said the NBA leader was kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where she was conscious and her condition stable.
Police sources said an FIR has been lodged against Patkar on charges of attempt to commit suicide. She is likely to be arrested after her health improves.
NBA activists have been staging protests here since March 17 against the decision of the Narmada Control Authority to raise the height of the dam. It says nearly 35,000 families will be rendered homeless due to submergence.
Besides Patkar, Jamsinh Nargave and Bhagwatibai Patidar from the SSP affected villages began an indefinite fast on March 29. Twenty-seven NBA activists were arrested on Wednesday night on charges of rioting and preventing government servants from performing their duty.
The NBA says the Sardar Sarovar Dam project has uprooted communities living in the Narmada Valley for the past many centuries.

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