The incident sparked fresh round of tension in the coastal villages in Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts where fishermen are opposing the multi-crore Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP), an Indo-Russian venture, which is to be commissioned soon.
"The situation is now under control," ADGP (Law and Order) S George told reporters in the afternoon. While at least a dozen villagers were injured, police too claimed that some of them were injured as protestors pelted stones at them.
The Vairavikinaru village shore, about half a kilometer from the nuclear project site, resembled a war zone as police fired tear gas shells forcing the protestors to run for safety. The whereabouts of People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) S P Udayakumar, who has been spearheading the protests, is not known.
The lathicharge started after south zone IG Rajesh Das issued a warning to the villages to leave the spot in ten minutes. When the villagers refused to leave, police lobbed tear gas shells at them and chased them away with lathis.
The protestors from Idinthakarai, Vijayapathi, Kutapuzhi and adjoining villages had gathered at Idinthakarai on Sunday morning and took out a march to Kudankulam, opposing enriched uranium fuel loading in the first reactor that is being prepared for commissioning. But police prevented them at Vairavikinaru and asked them to leave the spot. The villagers however decided to continue their protests at Vairavikinaru shore where collector R Selvaraj and SP Vijayendra Bidari held talks that failed.
Source: timesofindia.com
