Tension prevailed in several villages in Kerala’s Kozhikode district throughout Wednesday following violent clashes between agitators protesting against the land acquisition for a natural gas pipeline project of the Gas Authority of India ltd (GAIl) and the police. Clashes were going on in several places between protestors and police during late Wednesday evening. Several protestors, local people, mediamen and policemen suffered injuries in the clashes.
The police, providing security to GAIl’s pipeline-laying operations, took around 60 persons into custody on Wednesday morning itself and agitators alleged that they had rounded up even innocents and barging into homes of local residents. There were also complaints that the police had attacked even women and children inside their homes and vandalised private vehicles.
Tension prevailed late Wednesday evening in front of the police station at Mukkom near Kozhikode where protestors staged a sit-in led by Congress MP MI Shanavas and demanding the release of all the arrested people. The police used lathi-charge, tear gas and grenades after they came under heavy stone-pelting from the protestors.
Though Shanavas held discussions with the Deputy Superintendent of Police of the area, he was told that only a small number of detainees — and not all of them — could be released. Warning the CPI(M)-led lDF Government against efforts to crush the agitation using the police, Shanavas said, “If it is aiming to drown this agitation in blood, another Singur will happen.”
The Congress-led Opposition UDF will observe a shutdown in Keezhuparambu, Kodiyathur and Karassery panchayats on Thursday to protest against police’s action on Wednesday. The protests had spread into several other villages including Valillappuzha on the Kozhikode-Malappuram border by Wednesday afternoon.
Agitations have been going on for the past three months in the area against acquisition of land for the gas pipeline project. The agitators are also demanding a resurvey of the land required for the project as numerous complaints have come up over the laying of pipes along an 80 km stretch around Kozhikode as part of the 437 km Kochi-Koottanad- Mangalore pipeline.
Tension erupted at Eranjimavu near Mukkom early Wednesday morning after agitators blocked the vehicle that had brought GAIl officials to the work site. As protestors damaged the vehicle even before the officials could get out, the police resorted to lathi-charge and dismantled the agitators’ makeshift shed. They also used tear gas against the protestors.
The protestors, who dispersed from the place following the lathi-charge, reassembled in the adjacent villages and continued their protest. Vehicular traffic was disrupted on the State highway running through Mukkom for a long time after agitators blocked the road by burning tyres and piling up wooden logs.
The incident brought back memories of the brutal police attack on people who were protesting against a proposed road project in Kinalur, Kozhikode in May, 2010. “The policemen could be seen furiously barging into houses and destroying vehicles parked in residential compounds. It is alleged that they even attacked women and children,” said Safiya, a resident of Eranjimavu.
However, CPI(M) MlA George M Thomas justified Wednesday’s police action by saying, “These protestors have been destroying the costly vehicles and equipments of GAIl for the past several days. The police had not reacted so far. They reacted today (on Wednesday) because the agitators had resorted to attacking the GAIl officials and continued to destroy equipments,” he said.
Eyewitnesses said that the police had responded to the protests in an extremely disproportionate manner. “There was no need of this furious a police action. The authorities are not listening to people’s grievances. They are not against development. All they want is good price for their land and a fair and transparent acquisition process,” said Abdul Kamal, a local businessman.
“Many among us are also apprehensive of incidents like the pipeline blast in Andhra Pradesh in 2014 which claimed 22 lives,” said an agitator. However, GAIl had in an affidavit filed in the Kerala High Court in February last said that all internationally accepted precautions were being taken to ensure that the Rs 3,300 crore mega project was absolutely safe.