‘In Thoothukudi, people chose death by bullet’

Unit destroyed land, water, lives: anti-Sterlite stir leader

The people of Thoothukudi, who came together to protect their land, water and lives, had only two choices before them, says Krishnamoorthy Kittu, one of the leaders of the anti-Sterlite protests . Both choices meant death, either by cancer or by bullets. Driven to the wall, they chose the latter, he says.

Mr. Krishnamoorthy was delivering the keynote address at a debate on ‘Destructive development and re-thinking resistance’ organised by the Keraleeyam magazine here on Wednesday. According to him, it has been long years of struggle for the people there, right from the time the plant was set up in the late 1990s, after being shifted out of Madhya Pradesh and later Maharashtra.

Leaks

“Major leaks happened in 1997 and 157 people fainted. Something similar happened in 1999. We protested then too. How long will people keep on suffering silently? They destroyed our land, our water and our lives. In Pandarampatti village, located near the plant, there are 196 people affected with cancer. At the Adyar Cancer Institute and the Madurai Meenakshi Mission Hospital, the maximum cancer cases are from Thoothukudi. It was when we got together that we realised, every three days, one person is dying of cancer in Thoothukudi. When 12 of our people were shot down, the entire world heard about it. But we were being murdered everyday for so many years,” he says.

According to him, the protest began without the support of any political party or NGO. Women from 10 villages around the plant played a leading role. It began with human chains and awareness campaigns, which brought in more sections of the population.

During the 100 days of struggle before the Collectorate march, which led to the firing, no Central or State Minister visited the protesters, he says.

“What happened on May 22 was a massacre, similar to Jallianwala Bagh. They said we were carrying weapons. The only weapons we were carrying were our water bottles and biscuit packets. The police employed snipers to shoot us. None of the dead were shot below the hip. One minor girl was shot through her mouth. Has any policeman died? Even the violence was created by them to justify the murders,” he says. Mr. Krishnamoorthy criticises Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who otherwise condemns any incident around the globe, for his silence on the Thoothukudi firing.

“We have lost trust in everyone, in the government and in the police. We don’t trust this decision to close down the plant too. It was similarly closed down in 2013, but was reopened after a few days. We will continue our struggle, until we win,” he says. S.P. Udayakumar, leader of the Kudankulam struggle, released a special issue of Keraleeyam , by handing over a copy to Mr. Krishnamoorthy.