Anti-nuclear Power Protesters ‘Drop Dead’ on 700th day of Kudankulam Stir

15 July 2013 On the 700th day of their protest against the Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KNPP), vil­lagers of Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu “dropped dead” on the roads in a sym­bol­ic ges­ture, an anti-plant activist said Mon­day

15 July 2013 On the 700th day of their protest against the Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KNPP), vil­lagers of Idinthakarai in Tamil Nadu “dropped dead” on the roads in a sym­bol­ic ges­ture, an anti-plant activist said Mon­day.”

Sev­er­al vil­lagers who were walk­ing on the roads sud­den­ly fell down ‘dead’. After some time, they got up. A pub­lic meet­ing was also held today (Mon­day),” S.P. Udayaku­mar, coor­di­na­tor of the People’s Move­ment Against Nuclear Ener­gy (PMANE) told IANS over phone from Idinthakarai.

The ‘drop dead’ ges­ture was an enact­ment of the impact the pow­er plant would have on peo­ple. The protest was held against the clear­ance grant­ed by the Atom­ic Ener­gy Reg­u­la­to­ry Board (AERB) to KNPP’s first 1,000 MW unit to start nuclear fis­sion.

On Sat­ur­day night, the KNPP’s first reac­tor attained crit­i­cal­i­ty or began nuclear fis­sion.
The vil­lagers in the vicin­i­ty of the KNPP have been protest­ing against the nuclear pow­er plant for the past 700 days, fear­ing for their lives in the wake of the nuclear acci­dent in Fukushi­ma, Japan, in 2011, under the PMANE ban­ner.

The Nuclear Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion of India Ltd (NPCIL) is build­ing two reac­tors of 1,000 MW each. The reac­tors are sup­plied by Rus­sia.

Refut­ing rumours that the protest would take a vio­lent turn, Udayaku­mar said: “Ours is a peace­ful protest. We don’t believe in vio­lence. We will not coop­er­ate. A plant of this nature would need the coop­er­a­tion of the locals.”

“It is a gen­uine strug­gle of the work­ing class. But it is not being recog­nised. We had knocked sev­er­al doors — gov­ern­ment, experts, courts — but no door was opened to us,” M. Push­parayan, anoth­er PMANE leader, told IANS.

Udayaku­mar ques­tioned the urgency for giv­ing the “first approach to crit­i­cal­i­ty” clear­ance even before the apex court had the time to go through the reports filed by AERB, Nuclear Pow­er Cor­po­ra­tion of India Ltd (NPCIL) and the union min­istry of envi­ron­ment and forests.

He said the fight against KNPP would con­tin­ue — legal­ly, sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly and polit­i­cal­ly.
Udayaku­mar said a case had been filed in the Madras High Court Mon­day, chal­leng­ing the AERB’s clear­ance for the first KNPP unit to go crit­i­cal.