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Actress Amla among Greenpeace activists held in Hyderabad

Last Updated 08 October 2012, 15:29 IST

Actress Amala Nagarjuna was today arrested along with nine others, including Greenpeace activists, for staging a protest near historic Charminar demanding halting of new coal mining projects in forest areas, police said.

Amala and other activists were arrested under section 151 CrPC (arrest to prevent commission of cognisable offence) by the Charminar Police and later released on personal bonds, a senior police officer said.

On a day when Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan inaugurated the eleventh meet of the Conference of the Parties (COP-11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) here, Amala and some Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner, painted with the message 'Stop Coal Crimes--Save Indian Forests' from the monument seeking suspension of further mining in identified forest areas.

The activists demanded that the government stop all new coal mining activity in forest areas, according to a release from the Environmental NGO. "Coal mining is destroying the huge biodiversity in India besides homes of tribal communities and threatening natural habitat of Indian Tiger and that is why I am protesting today along with those who signed Greenpeace India's petition demanding the government to stop destroying our forests," Amla said.

The 44-year-old actress cum animal welfare activist has acted in a number of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi films. On Amla's arrest, Divya Raghunandan from Greenpeace said, "the present policy of the Indian government will fell over 1.1 million hectares of pristine forest, displace tens of thousands of indigenous people and wreck the rich biodiversity of India."

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(Published 08 October 2012, 15:29 IST)

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