Protesters lay siege to Vizhinjam seaport
TRIVANDRUM:THE Adani Ports could not resume construction at its site here on Saturday due to stiff resistance from the local fishing community despite a court order in its favour.
They lay siege to the entrance of the Vizhinjam International Seaport forcing dozens of trucks carrying building materials to the site to return.
India’s infrastructure major which runs the international airport here is building the country’s largest and all-weather port catering to smaller ports for transhipment.
The Kerala High Court had on Tuesday asked the protestors to comply with its orders for “unhindered ingress and egress” to the project site.
“There is authorisation by this court to see that ingress and egress are provided. It is not as if the police or central forces are powerless,” Justice Anu Sivaraman said in her order.
“It is only to see that there is no law and order situation, and the people who are there are not put to peril. Please don’t take that as a trump card.”
“It is not very difficult to see that the order is complied with. Just removing the pandal (marquee) is not a difficult proposition for anybody,” she added.
“To say that there is some kind of inability either in this court to pass an order or in the police to carry out that order is a misapprehension.”
The fishers say the project will adversely affect their livelihood, coastal ecosystem and the ecology of the Western Ghats due to the mining of granite stones to build it.
Initially, they were demanding the government honour their promise to rehabilitate hundreds of displaced families who were living in camps for more than seven years.
V Sivankuty, the state’s labour minister, said accused them of stalling the construction, for more than 100 days now, even ater the state promised to meet their demands.
“Their main demand is that the work has to be abandoned, which we are not in a position to consider,” he told a press conference here.
“It’s not going to benefit them in no manner at all except that they can continue the strike indefinitely.”
A company spokesperson said prolonging a deadlock has stalled work on the $900 million transhipment port and they were waiting for government intervention.
He said two of around 25 trucks that tried to enter the port were damaged by stones thrown by the protesters and the police in riot gear failed to stop them.
A group of protesting women lying on the road leading to the port said they would not let them in.