The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore News : Stir against Corporation compost yard at Vellalore intensifies

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 25, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore

Stir against Corporation compost yard at Vellalore intensifies

Special Correspondent

Residents led by MP attempts to block road Public would be mobilised to protest against the "anti-people" approach of the police: CPI

STRETCHED OUT: Activits of the Communist Party of India attempting to block road at Aathupalam near the city on Friday. - Photo: M. Periasamy

COIMBATORE: K. Subbarayan, MP, and 298 others were removed by police when they attempted to block road at Aathupalam on the city's southern border on Friday, demanding shifting of the Corporation's compost yard from Vellalore.

Residents of Podanur, Vellalore and Chettipalayam participated in the agitation. They had been complaining that unsafe disposal of garbage and bio-medical waste at the yard had caused health problems.

At least 100 policemen were posted on Podanur Main Road and up to the railway gate on Nanjundapuram Road. There was a policeman every three feet on Podanur Main Road to prevent protestors from assembling at Aathupalam.

Sources in the Kurichi-Vellalore Pollution Prevention Action Committee that campaigned for the shifting of the yard said many were even rounded up early in the day. They included the committee office-bearers.

As people arrived at Aathupalam for the agitation, they were removed to a police van. None was given a chance to squat on the main road. They were kept at two marriage halls in Podanur. Police said all of them were let off in the evening.

Mr. Subbarayan, the district secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), P. R. Natarajan and former Perur MLA of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, A. Natarajan, arrived at the venue around 11 a.m.

The MP and others squatted on the road for a brief while. Some of the party activists even lied on the road to register their protest. They were removed immediately.

The action committee secretary, K. S. Mohan, was among the earliest to be taken into preventive custody.

He said a meeting of the committee would be held to decide on the next form of protest. Mr. Mohan indicated that the struggle was not over and it would continue until the yard was shifted.

Shops in the areas affected by the yard remained closed throughout the day as part of the protest against the Corporation over the condition of the yard. In a statement released in the evening, Mr. Subbarayan, condemned the Coimbatore Rural Police for preventing a democratic form of protest by scores of residents who were affected over the last two years by the garbage yard. Mr. Subbarayan alleged that Mr. Devaraj was roughed up by the police at Aathupalam.

In another statement, the CPI district secretary, M. Natarajan, said public would be mobilised to protest against the "anti-people" approach of the police.

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