Jaitapur project: Prohibitory orders after bandh turns violent

Bellevision Media Network

Ratnagiri, 19 April 2011: Violence and arson marked the Shiv Sena-sponsored bandh in Ratnagiri district on Tuesday against the police firing on anti-nuclear power project demonstrators in Jaitapur. Prohibitory orders were promulgated under section 144 CrPC in the coastal district after the largely successful shut—down called by opposition Shiv Sena turned violent. Meanwhile, the Maharashtra government announced a magisterial inquiry into the police firing yesterday that left one person dead.

 

 

 

Angry protesters today vandalised the district hospital where the post-mortem of Tabrez Abdul Sayanekar, who died in the police firing, was to be conducted, set afire some state transport buses and burnt tyres to block Ratnagiri-Kolhapur highway, police said.

 

With the Opposition sharpening its attack on the State’s Democratic Front (DF) government over the proposed 9900 MW nuclear power project, Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Eknath Khadse demanded a judicial probe into the police firing.

 

Though the government mounted a strong defence of the controversial project, it announced a magisterial inquiry into the firing. At the same time, it said the probe would also ascertain if Monday’s violent protests were part of a pre-planned political conspiracy.

 

 

 

“An inquiry will be conducted whether the violent protests at the plant site and the attack on Sakhrinate police station were politically motivated and part of a pre-planned conspiracy,” Home Minister R. R. Patil told the House. Tabrez was killed in police firing at Sakhrinate village when around 600—700 locals protesting against the project, attacked the local police station.

 

Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said that the DF government will have to pay a “heavy price” for police firing. “It is time for chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to pack up and go home,” Mr. Thackeray said. The project with six nuclear rectors of 1,600 MW each would be one of the largest Nuclear power projects in the world.

- PTI