Four senior Posco-India officials including three South Korean nationals were on Saturday taken hostage by anti-project activists, but were released unharmed seven hours later, official sources said.
The officials and South Korean nationals were taken hostage after they went to the project site near Paradip in Jagatsinghpur district and were taken hostage around 10.30 am by the anti-project activists demanding its scrapping.
The senior executives held captive were K S Choi, General Manager (Construction), S H Nam, T J Aan, both engineers and D Ojha, an Oriya official.
The sources said that the officer-in-charge of the local Kujang police station, Amarendra Panda handed over a written assurance to leaders of the Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) which has been opposing the South Korean company's steel project, who later released the hostages.
"All the hostages are in good health," said Panda. "We released the officials at 5.10 pm after receiving written assurance from the Jagatsinghpur district administration," PPSS president Abhay Sahu told PTI.
Posco which signed an MOU with the Orissa government for setting up a 'greenfield steel mill' with an investment of Rs 52,000 crore (Rs 520 billion), has been facing resistance from the local people.
