Even as tension prevailed at Idinthakarai after unidentified persons hurled country bombs at a few places in the coastal hamlet on Wednesday night, peace talks were organised at Radhapuram on Thursday.
After the bomb attacks that destroyed three houses and a car, eerie silence descended on the village on Thursday. The fishermen did not venture into the sea. The police did not dare enter the village immediately to search for unexploded bombs and round up those who perpetrated the violence. A small police force that waited at the Kudankulam police station till dawn entered the village in the morning.
Deputy Superintendent of Police, Valliyoor, P. Balaji; Inspectors of Police, Joseph Judson of Koodankulam and Sahaya Jose of Uvari; and Radhapuram Tahsildar Murugan visited the sites where the attacks occurred. The police team returned empty-handed.
Anti-nuke protesters reiterated that no improvised explosive device had been stockpiled at Idinthakarai and blamed the explosions on the police. Last year, a massive blast brought down a house at Tsunami Colony, where country bombs had been fabricated and stocked up to settle scores between two groups of neighbouring Kooththenkuzhi. Eight persons were killed in the incident.
After this incident, police and revenue officials convened peace talks with Idinthakarai fishermen at Radhapuram. The meeting decided to surrender the country bombs to the police and inform them of the places where the explosives had been buried.
However, none of the decisions arrived at the meeting has been implemented because of the non-cooperation of the villagers.
Against this backdrop, the officials were compelled to conduct one more round of talks at Radhapuram to end the ‘bomb culture’ in the hamlet after Wednesday’s attack.
The Kudankulam police have registered five cases against 65 persons allegedly involved in the attacks, based on complaints from five persons.
