Gas leak victims’ kin protest with bodies, want firm shifted
Angry villagers along with the Telugu Desam and Left activists staged a dharna with the bodies of three people who lost their lives in Thursday’s styrene gas leak in front of the LG Polymers Pvt Ltd unit near Visakhapatnam on Friday
The protesters were demanding an official announcement from the state government that the factory dealing with hazardous chemicals would be shifted away from the thickly populated RR Venkatapuram area. After an hours-long face off with the police, the villagers called off the dharna at around 3 pm when the bodies started decomposing and village elders decided to perform last rites before sunset.
TD MLA P.V.G.R. Naidu and CPI leader J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy led the protests in which a large number of TD and Left workers took part, triggering a political slugfest with the ruling
YSR Congress. Kodali Nani, civil supplies minister, accused TD chief N. Chandrababu Naidu of exploiting the tragedy to defame the government.
The dharna began at around 10.30 am when about 30 people belonging to TD and Left parties gathered at the main gate and raised slogans. A team of ministers M. Srinivasa Rao, D. Krishnadas and G. Jayaram along with director-general of police D. Gowtham Sawang were inspecting the factory premises at that time.
They tried to pacify the protesters who did not relent. The ministers left the place after police dispersed the gathering crowd.
Tension mounted after some time when the relatives of the deceased brought the bodies from King George Hospital mortuary to RR Venkatapuram to perform the last rites. The villagers have to cross the factory to enter the village.