The public protest at Avikkal Thodu in Kozhikode city against the ongoing works of the Sewage Treatment Plant here turned violent on Saturday as the police caned the protestors and used tear grenades to dissolve them.
The local people under the aegis of the anti-STP protest committee had called for a hartal in three divisions of the corporation on Saturday. The protest has been going on since morning as part of the hartal.
Somehow there was a scuffle with the police in the morning. More people turned up later causing a bigger chaos. They upturned the barricades set up by the police to safeguard the ongoing works and even threw one of them into the canal. This led to the lathicharge that scattered the protestors. Matters escalated when someone pelted stones at the police and the police, in return threw tear grenades at them. One of the protestors tried to attack the police using a stick. But the police singled him out to beat up. Several people were injured in the scuffle that followed.
However, the local people have alleged that it was not the protestors but some one else who had thrown stones at the police in a deliberate attempt to make matters worse. They had also alleged the same kind of involvement in the recent incident in which sewage was thrown at policemen amidst the National Highway blockade.
The protest against the plant had escalated in the last two weeks and the district administration has ensured tight police protection to the project site. Policemen from Malabar Special Police have been brought down to Kozhikode to ensure it.
The local people are determined to sabotage the project at any cost claiming that it would cause health issues to people living near it. On the other hand the Kozhikode Corporation is hell bent on setting it up, on grounds that the protests are ill founded and that the project was indeed to benefit the local people.
