Five days after the district administration clamped Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.PC) to facilitate the resumption of the LPG terminal project of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) at Puthuvype here, a protest march was taken out by residents to the project site on Saturday in open defiance of the order. More than 60 people, including women and children, courted arrest during the march.
The march, organised by the LNG Terminal Virudha Janakeeya Samara Samiti, started from St. Sebastian Church, just over 100 metres away from the project site. Though it was originally proposed to start at 7.30 a.m., it was delayed by more than two hours as the organisers chose to wait for a better turnout. The march eventually reached the project site around 9.50 a.m., by which time the police had turned the area into a security fortress and unfurled a banner proclaiming that the protest was in violation of Section 144 of the CrPC, which attracted penal action.
Over 500 police personnel, including 100 policewomen, drawn from stations across the district were deployed under six Deputy Superintendents of Police under G. Poonguzhali, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order). Fort Kochi RDO Snehil Kumar Singh was also present.
Barricades
The march was stopped by the police using barricades following which the protesters resorted to sloganeering against the project before staging a sit-in.
“The march is a civil disobedience movement against the arbitrary imposition of Section 144. The State Government and the district administration have resorted to strong-arm tactics citing a non-existent order from the apex court,” said samiti president M.B. Ajayaghosh.
Inaugurating the protest, environmental activist C.R. Neelakandan said the terminal was being set up by abusing power and oppressing popular resistance. “The protesters never resorted to violence, and it was the State that used force as it happened two years ago,” he said.
The police then arrested the protesters and shifted them to the Kalamassery Armed Reserve Camp. Later, they were released on bail. Though initially the police considered invoking Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act (punishment for cruelty to child) against those guilty of enlisting children in the protest, it was eventually dropped as it would have resulted in denial of bail.
The district administration had imposed Section 144 of the CrPC around the project site on Monday ahead of the resumption of work after a gap of three years.
The work was stalled in the face of a strong people’s movement in June 2017.
The samiti had last week launched an indefinite satyagraha in front of the Elankunnapuzha grama panchayat office protesting against the project.
Claiming that the project posed a grave threat to lives in case of an accident, the samiti had demanded shifting of the storage facility to Ambalamugal from the densely populated Puthuvype.
The IOC, however, has consistently dispelled safety threats, saying that the latest safety arrangements had been put in place to take care of any emergency situation.
