Chittagong: Police obstructed a blockade programme of the National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas-Natural Resources and Power-Port in the port city on Saturday protesting the signing of a contract for implementing the Rampal power plant project near the Sundarbans.

Witnesses said a group of leaders and activists of the National Committee gathered in front of Chittagong Press Club at about 11:30am as part of the sit-in-programme blocking highways across the country announced earlier by the committee.

As the activists took to the street, police obstructed them and later charged baton to disperse them.

At one stage, a chase and counter-chase took place between police and the activists as they locked into a fistfight.

Sub-inspector of Kotwali Police Station Bikash Chandra Shil said the National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas-Natural Resources and Power-Port did not take any permission to observe their programme. “We obstructed them as they tried to hold a rally on a road.”    

Later, they arranged the rally beside the road, he said.