Kudankulam protesters block port

Fisherfolk arrive in 500 boats at Tuticorin to step up anti-nuke stir

Stepping up protests against the commencement of fuel loading in the first 1000-MWe reactor of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP), over 2,000 fisherfolk sought to enforce a sea blockade of the historic V O Chidamb­aranar Port in nearby Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu on Saturday. 

The Tuticorin Port, renamed by the Centre last year after the late freedom fighter, and adjoining areas were tense as fisherfolk, including women, carried forward the stir of anti-KNPP Struggle Committee led by S P Udayakumar. They came in groups in about 500 boats to block the port, demanding that fuel loading in the nuclear plant’s first unit be stopped at once.

The fisherfolk, who also came from neighbouring Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari districts, blocked the approach channel to the port from the sea side for three hours from 8:30 am, official sources told Deccan Herald.  Fortified by additional state police and CISF contingents along the port installations, with backing by a couple of Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships, the port authorities ensured the presence of a big security force there during the blockade hours. An ICG Dornier surveillance aircraft also hovered in the sky above the agitating fisherfolk.

“Luckily, there was no problem; the slogan-shouting fisherfolk with Indian flags in hand, sailed away peacefully after the agitation and there was no cause to press the security forces into any action,” the sources said.

Alongside the peaceful blockade of the port, fisherfolk on land, including in Tuticorin town and other coastal hamlets like Manapadu, where one fisherman was killed in police firing last week, and Veerapandipattinam, formed human chains to protest against the Kudankulam nuclear plant.

Udayakumar, with a non-bailable arrest warrant issued to nab him, it is learnt, is still in hiding in a village near Idinthakarai, the center of their over one year-long protests against the KNPP, sources said.

DMK President, M Karunanidhi, citing a media report, pointed out that even after one year of the agitation against the KNPP, none of the welfare and development schemes announced by the Jayalalitha regime for the Kudankulam area people have got off the ground.

The chief minister had unveiled a Rs 500-crore development package for 45 village panchayats in that area, but “all these still remain on paper,” Karunanidhi claimed.