Protesters hit out at ‘panel’s bad job’

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The anti-nuke campaigners on Wednesday told chief minister J. Jayalalithaa that the team of experts her government had sent to Koodankulam, to report on the nuclear power plant’s safety, did not do its job well.

“We told the chief minister that the expert team had spent a mere two hours at Koodankulam plant and did not meet the local people and their group of experts.

We also conveyed to her our apprehension that the report given by the expert team is biased,” Mr S.P. Udayakumar, who led the four-member anti-nuke team to meet the chief minister at her office, told reporters after the 15-minute meeting.

He said the Central government was waging a psychological warfare against the anti-Koodankulam protesters by arresting a foreigner, freezing the accounts of NGOs and falsely accusing them of receiving foreign funds.

Expressing the hope that the chief minister would take firm action, Mr Udayakumar said the CM had always maintained that her government was for “the ordinary and downtrodden”. “She is the only hope of the ordinary and downtrodden.”

The PMANE team, comprising M. Pushparayan, lawyer Sivasubramaniam and anti-nuke expert team member Dr Ramesh, also requested the chief minister to visit the agitating locals. While not giving any commitment about the visit, the chief minister had assured them that she would get back to them after going through their technical reports.

Denying that he was receiving any fund from international or Indian agencies for the Koodankulam struggle, Mr Udayakumar said he was ready to divulge the details of his properties. “I have already made public the bank statements of my family members.”

He also wondered why German national Sonneteg Reiner Hermann was not arrested and prosecuted if his actions were “inconsistent”.