SC refuses to stop fuel loading in Kundankulam plant
Posted on: 13 Sep 2012
New Delhi:Declining to put on hold for now the loading of fuel rods in one of the two reactors of Kundankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court Thursday said it would hear Sep 20 the plea seeking to restrain the central government.
The apex court's decision came as hundreds of people from Tamil Nadu's Idinthakarai village, the epicentre of the protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), stood in the sea water Thursday to protest moves to load uranium fuel in one of the two reactors.
Forming a human chain in the sea, the villagers from around the Kudankulam nuclear plant followed a similar 'jal satyagraha' in Madhya Pradesh against the Omkareshwar Dam on the Narmada.
'Any kind of satyagraha where people (willing to) take their lives is not an ordinary protest. It is a non-violent appeal to the powers that be and the power holders who must really listen to people,' social activist Medha Patkar told a TV channel.
'I think even the Constitution says that people's consent is necessary. Forcible eviction in the name of progress for development or power is absolutely not understandable and it is not justifiable,' she added.
Emphasising that KNPP should not be pushed, she said: 'Talk to the people, hold dialogue until they are convinced of not only safety... but all issues of economical, social and politics related to nuclear powers.'
On Wednesday, protestors ended their 48-hour relay fast in Idinthakarai village in Tirunelveli district to protest police use of teargas shells and batons to disperse crowds and the constabulary conducting house-to-house searches.
