The public protest at Avikkal Thodu in Kozhikode city against the ongoing works of the Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) here turned violent on Saturday as the police caned the protesters and used tear grenades to dissolve them. The Vellayil police arrested one person in connection with the violence.
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The local people under the aegis of the anti-STP protest committee had called for a hartal in three divisions of the Corporation on Saturday. The protest had been going on since morning as part of the hartal.
Suddenly, there was a scuffle with the police in the morning. More people turned up causing a bigger chaos. They upturned the barricades set up by the police to safeguard the ongoing works and even threw one of them into the canal.
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This led to a lathicharge that scattered the protesters. Matters escalated when someone threw stones at the police and the police in return threw tear grenades at them. One of the protesters tried to attack the police using a stick. But the police singled him out to beat up.
Several people were injured in the scuffle that followed.
However, the local people alleged that it was not the protesters but someone else who had threw stones at the police in a deliberate attempt to make matters worse. They had also alleged the same kind of involvement in the recent incident in which sewage was thrown at the police during the National Highway blockade.
The protest against the STP had escalated in the last two weeks and the district administration had ensured tight police protection to the project site. The police from Malabar Special Police were brought to Kozhikode to tighten security.
The local people were determined to sabotage the project at any cost claiming that it would cause health issues to those living near it. On the other hand, the Kozhikode Corporation was bent on setting it up, on the grounds that the protests were illf-ounded and that the project was indeed to benefit the local people.