The leaders of the Left parties have condemned the police firing on the protesters during the agitation against the Sterlite copper plant at Thoothukudi of Tamil Nadu, resulted in the death 11 persons and injuries to several others.
Dubbing the incident as an attack against the people, CPI(M) State secretariat member and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) State president Ch. Narasinga Rao on Wednesday demanded immediate closure of the Sterlite Copper, a smelter unit of teh Vedanta Group. Condoling the deaths, he expressed sympathies to the bereaved families.
Public health at stake
“The Sterlite unit is causing health hazards to the people living in the vicinity. The contamination of its nearby water sources has posed a risk to the 50,000 people living in the areas surrounding the smelter plant. There are only two options— either to close down the plant or vacate the area,” Mr. Narasinga Rao said.
Justifying the protest, he said the Thoothukudi residents had been protesting for the last 100 days as they had no other option.
Accusing the management of the Sterlite unit of establishing polluting industries at various places in the country, he said the corporate was playing with the lives of people by keeping the governments in their grip.
HZL acquisition
Recalling that the Vedanta Group had acquired the Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) plant, an PSU, in Visakhapatnam in 2003 and closed it down in 2013, he condemned the agreement reached by the then Chandrababu Naidu government with the Sterlite company on the Hindustan Zinc lands.
