(India) Police Kill Anti-Nuke Protester in India, Resistance Continues to Grow

Despite the killing of an anti-nuclear pro­test­er by police on Mon­day, hun­dreds of pro­test­ers form­ing a human chain stood in sea waters today, for the sec­ond day in a row, demand­ing a halt to prepa­ra­tions for fuel load­ing into the reac­tor of Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KKNPP) in Tuti­corin dis­trict.

The Hindu.com report­ed that women and men would stand in the sea waters for two hours in turns. Push­parayan, leader of the People’s Move­ment Against Nuclear Ener­gy (PMANE) has been spear­head­ing the year-long agi­ta­tion.

The Coast Guard air­craft and ships main­tained sur­veil­lance at sea off near­by Idinthakarai as the vil­lagers stood in waist and neck deep water.

Tak­ing cue from a sim­i­lar protest demand­ing land as com­pen­sa­tion and reduc­tion of Omkaresh­war Dam recent­ly by vil­lagers of Khand­wa dis­trict in Mad­hya Pradesh, PMANE launched their jal satya­gra­ha (water civ­il dis­obe­di­ence) on Thurs­day, mark­ing a new turn in their agi­ta­tion, which was inten­si­fied after prepa­ra­tions for fuel load­ing into the plant was announced.

More than 4,000 police per­son­nel, bol­stered by the para­mil­i­tary Rapid Action Force, con­tin­ued to main­tain a strict vig­il, hav­ing almost sealed the entire Kudanku­lam town.

Mean­while, police have been seek­ing to arrest S.P. Udayaku­mar, the con­ven­er of PMANE, in attempt to quell the protests. They have already arrest­ed a close asso­ciate of Udayaku­mar in Chen­nai last week for try­ing to “insti­gate” the fish­er­men to join the stir against Nuclear Pow­er Project.

Mr. Udayaku­mar had alleged­ly announced that he would sur­ren­der on Tues­day night, but seems to have changed his mind.  Police said they would con­tin­ue their search.

Ear­li­er this week, state offi­cials say Indi­an police fired at pro­test­ers near this nuclear pow­er plant being con­struct­ed in south­ern India, killing one per­son.

The Tamil Nadu state gov­ern­ment says police fired Mon­day to dis­perse about 2,000 peo­ple who were demon­strat­ing against the load­ing of nuclear fuel in the Russ­ian-built reac­tor. It says the pro­test­ers threw stones and sticks at police near the Kudanku­lam Project, and five offi­cers were injured.

Con­struc­tion of the plant has been delayed by protests in the past year by res­i­dents and anti-nuclear groups con­cerned about safe­ty fol­low­ing the Fukushi­ma nuclear pow­er plant dis­as­ter in Japan last year.

The gov­ern­ment says the plant, about 700 kilo­me­ters (440 miles) south of Chen­nai, the state cap­i­tal, will meet safe­ty stan­dards.

The fol­low­ing video shows recent cov­er­age of the jal satya­gra­ha actions against hydro­elec­tric dams which have become an inspi­ra­tion to move­ments through­out the region: