SNIPERS USED ASSAULT RIFLES

One more death; internet suspended

Amidst public and political outrage over the killing of 10 anti-Sterlite protesters in Thoothukudi, a youth was killed in a fresh round of police firing in the port town on Wednesday.

Fresh protests had erupted in the morning as hundreds hit the streets, raising slogans. The victim Kaliappan, 22, succumbed to bullet injuries after the police opened fire in a bid to chase away the angry crowd which was pelting stoned at the men in uniform. The police claimed they had fired rubber bullets at the crowd and sent volleys of live ammunition overhead, but one of the rubber bullets hit a man in the spine, killing him, reported news agency AFP.

In the evening the incident had an obvious fallout: the police chief and the District Collector of Tuticorin were transferred.

Political party leaders and activists condemned the latest firing even as they expressed strong condemnation of the use of ''snipers'' to aim and fire at protesters a day earlier.

Video footage of the police in action on Tuesday showed a policeman in civilian clothes getting atop a police van and aiming at the crowd with a gun. In the background, a voice is heard -- "At least one should die". Seconds later, he fired the first shot. Many of the victims who died sustained bullet injuries on or above their shoulders - some of them on their face. DMK leader M K Stalin, who skipped the swearing-in ceremony of the JDS-Congress government in Karnataka and rushed to Thoothukudi to meet the kin of the victims and call on the injured, demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami for allowing the police to use AK 47s to fire at the crowd. The Sterlite industrial plant was accused of polluting the air and water in the region, causing health complications for the local population. While the State Government named a retired Madras High Court judge Aruna Jagadeesan to head a probe into the firing, the police continued to remain on the defensive and did not explain who ordered Tuesday's firing and under what circumstances, except for insisting that the crowd had turned violent. The police have booked actor Kamal Haasan for visiting the Thoothukudi Government Hospital, in violation of Section 144, and arrested the CPI (M) state secretary Balakrishnan (he was released later) for leading a protest.