10 killed as anti- Sterlite rally turns violent in TN
◗ The protesters toppled & torched over two dozen vehicles in parking space of the revenue dept office, prompting the police to open fire
Ten people, including a woman and two minors, were killed on Tuesday in police firing on violent protesters seeking closure of Sterlite copper smelter plant at Thoothukudi in south Tamil Nadu over pollution concerns.
Starting from “Our Lady of Snows” church in the coastal area, around 20,000 people marched to lay siege to the district collector’s office, violating prohibitory order under section 144 of Cr. PC.
The angry protesters toppled and torched over two dozen vehicles in parking space of the revenue department office and smashed window panes of buildings, prompting the police to open fire that killed nine people. An 11- year- old school boy succumbed to his injuries in hospital.
Later, mob of fishermen joined the protesters who tried to target a senior police official.
“We were forced to fire because there was an intelligence input that they were marching to the residence of the district superintendent of police,” a senior officer said.
Those killed in police firing were identified as Jeyaraman, Kandhaiah, Glaston, Venista ( 16), Tamilarasan, Kartik ( 11), Shanmugam, Vinitha ( 29), V. Antony
New Delhi, May 22: Security agencies have flagged a new strategy of Pakistani personnel wearing thermal camouflage suits to avoid detection by Indian night vision devices, a design adopted by them to kill a BSF jawan along the border in Jammu and Kashmir amid the recent spate of ceasefire violations.
The disturbing first- time instance, officials said quoting an electronic surveillance report, has rattled the top commanders responsible for ensuring security at the Indo- Pak IB and the un- fenced Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
Constable Sitaram Yadav ( 28) of the 192nd battalion of the Border Security Force, manning a forward post along the IB in the RS Pora region, was shot with a precise close- range aim by either a militant or Special Service Group ( SSG) trooper from the Pakistani side at about 1: 30 am on May 18, they said. Official sources said a grievously injured Mr Yadav was immediately evacuated by two other BSF jawans present in the nearby post but he later succumbed to his bullet wound that he took in his left eye. The BSF commanders initially thought that the jawan was killed by a sniper shot from across the border.
However, a threadbare scrutiny of the local handheld thermal imager ( HHTI) showed that a very- grained black shadow like movement takes place on the monitor and it comes very close to the BSF post and fires a shot, that is suspected to have hit the jawan leading to his killing, they said.
The worry is that the HHTI, deployed in the border areas for night vision and surveillance, could not clearly pick the black shadow of an approaching man as he might be wearing a thermal camouflage suit that insulates the body heat of a person, they said.
The HHTI picks up the body heat signatures of a living being and creates a silhouette that helps the BSF and the Army to check infiltration during night time.
Probe into the killing of a constable revealed that he was shot with a precise close- range aim by Pak rangers who wore thermal camouflage suit