Kudankulam stir: Tamil Nadu seeks week to gather details of cases

The Tamil Nadu government has sought one week's time from the Madras High Court to gather details of the cases filed against the anti-Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KNPP) protestors, said an advocate who had filed a PIL on the issue.

"The case came up for hearing today (Tuesday). The Tamil Nadu government wanted one weeks's time to gather details of all the cases filed against the anti-Kudankulam power plant protestors," advocate P. Pugalenthi told IANS.

He had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) seeking to know the state government's action in complying with the Supreme Court direction to withdraw all the cases filed against the agitators so that peace and normalcy is restored.

The apex court said after normalcy is restored, steps should be taken to educate the people of the necessity of the project which is in the largest interest of the nation, particularly Tamil Nadu.

According to Pugalenthi, more than 300 cases have been filed by the Tirunelveli police against the agitators over a period of 650 days.

He said the number of cases is less as compared to the number of people who are charged as police clubbed thousands of people in a single case.

India's atomic power plant operator, Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL), is setting up the project in Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district, around 650 km from Chennai, with two Russian-made reactors of 1,000 MW each.

The KNPP is an outcome of the inter-governmental agreement between India and the erstwhile Soviet Union in 1988. However, construction began only in 2001.

Fearing for their safety in the wake of the nuclear accident in Fukushima in Japan in 2011, villagers in the vicinity of the Kudankulam plant, under the banner of the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) have been opposing the project.

City-based environmental activist G. Sundarrajan had filed a case in the apex court demanding the KNPP be scrapped. The court dismissed the case in May and laid down 15 directions for NPCIL, the Atomic Energy regulatory Board (AERB), the central environment and forest ministry, Tamil Nadu government and the state pollution control panel to follow.