Violence mars bandh at Jaitapur nuclear plant site in Maharashtra

Violence marked the bandh at Ratnagiri, a coastal city about 300 km south of Mumbai on Tuesday, as demonstrators attacked the district hospital and public vehicles, protesting against the killing of a villager in police firing a day earlier.
 
The Maharashtra government, which ordered a routine magisterial inquiry into the firing, will also conduct a probe to see whether the protests were politically motivated and part of a pre-planned conspiracy.
 
Maharashtra's home minister R R Patil told the state assembly that the firing was ordered as a last resort by the police, especially after a mob attacked a police station on Monday. Hundreds of protestors had breached the security at the site of the proposed 9,900 MW nuclear power plant at Jaitapur near Ratnagiri.
 
The controversial power plant – comprising six nuclear power plants – will be one of the world's largest nuclear power complexes. It is being developed jointly by two state-owned energy majors – France's Areva and Nuclear Power Corporation Ltd of India.
 
Patil, a member of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) – which is in power in Maharashtra, along with the Congress – told the assembly that the state government was committed to ensuring that the project is implemented at Jaitapur without any difficulties. The government would continue to clear the doubts of the local villagers on the issue.
 
The Shiv Sena and anti-nuclear activists have launched a campaign against the Jaitapur nuclear project. Their movement has suddenly gained prominence after the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, following the earthquake and the tsunami.
 
The Congress has also come out strongly against the violence in Jaitapur. Manish Tewari, the party spokesman, wondered whether the agitation was based on real concerns or 'imaginary' ones being stoked by vested interests.
 
''It is important for all stakeholders to isolate forces, which are, whether for political or other extraneous reasons, stoking imaginary concerns,'' said Tewari. He wondered whether powers wanting to stop India's economic growth were behind the agitations.
 
Meanwhile, the relatives of the victim of the police firing refused to claim the body on Tuesday and asserted that they would do so only after the government announced the scrapping of the project.
 
Both Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan and Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray have been addressing rallies in Ratnagiri and the neighbouring villages.