8 years ago
Internet services have been suspended in Tuticorin and the adjoining districts, in an attempt to check escalation of violence after 12 people died protesting against Vedanta's Sterlite Copper plant. Police firing also left several injured in Tamil Nadu's port city of Tuticorin, now called Thoothukudi. The protests intensified on Tuesday following reports suggesting expansion of Vedanta's Sterlite copper unit. The group has since denied seeking licence for expansion. Yesterday, Madras High Court stayed the expansion of the plant after a petition claimed the company was building it without the necessary permission.
As protesters clashed with police personnel, hurling home-made bombs and stones at them, police said they fired live ammunition in the air to disperse the protesters. "We were forced to fire rubber bullets which unfortunately hit one man in the spine and he died," a police officer said, according to AFP. The police chief and the District Collector of Tuticorin were transferred yesterday after fresh firing by police personnel. The Tamil Nadu government appointed a one-person commission of inquiry headed by a retired judge of the Madras High Court, Aruna Jagadeesan, to probe the violence at Tuticorin.
DMK compared the use of force by police to the massacre at Punjab's Jallianwalla Bagh by the British nearly a hundred years ago. The CPI(M) joined the protesters in demanding the shutdown of the Sterlite plant. Congress president Rahul Gandhi called the police action "state sponsored terrorism" and said that the "citizens were murdered for protesting against injustice". Superstar Rajinikanth and actor-politician Kamal Haasan visited people injured in violence at the hospital, and condemned the police action against the protesters.
As protesters clashed with police personnel, hurling home-made bombs and stones at them, police said they fired live ammunition in the air to disperse the protesters. "We were forced to fire rubber bullets which unfortunately hit one man in the spine and he died," a police officer said, according to AFP. The police chief and the District Collector of Tuticorin were transferred yesterday after fresh firing by police personnel. The Tamil Nadu government appointed a one-person commission of inquiry headed by a retired judge of the Madras High Court, Aruna Jagadeesan, to probe the violence at Tuticorin.
DMK compared the use of force by police to the massacre at Punjab's Jallianwalla Bagh by the British nearly a hundred years ago. The CPI(M) joined the protesters in demanding the shutdown of the Sterlite plant. Congress president Rahul Gandhi called the police action "state sponsored terrorism" and said that the "citizens were murdered for protesting against injustice". Superstar Rajinikanth and actor-politician Kamal Haasan visited people injured in violence at the hospital, and condemned the police action against the protesters.
