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Jaitapur N-plant: Bandh in Ratnagiri turns violent

MUMBAI: The bandh called by opposition Shiv Sena in coastal Ratnagiri district to condemn the police firing on anti-nuclear power project demonstrators in Jaitapur turned violent on Tuesday with a mob ransacking a district hospital and torching buses. The mob attacked the district hospital and damaged its postmortem wing in Ratnagiri besides setting on fire some state transport buses and other vehicles, officials said. With the Opposition sharpening its attack on the ruling Democratic Front (DF) government over the proposed 9900 MW Nuclear Power Project in Jaitapur, the Leader of Opposition in legislative Assembly Eknath Khadse demanded a judicial probe into yesterday's police firing in which one person was killed. Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray said that the DF government will have to pay a "heavy price" for police firing. "It is time for chief minister Prithviraj Chavan to pack up and go home," Thackeray said. Tavrez Sejkar was yesterday killed in police firing at Sakhrinate village when around 600-700 locals protesting against the project, attacked the local police station. The project with six nuclear rectors of 1,600 MW each would be one of the largest N-power projects in the world. Environment minister Jairam Ramesh has said additional safeguards will be taken in light of the troubles at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The Fukushima plant's cooling systems were destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami last month, and the Japanese operator has struggled to get the plant back under control. Ramesh described the events unfolding at Fukushima as a ``wake-up call,'' but said India could not abandon nuclear energy in its quest for clean energy to fuel its rapid economic growth. The government has countered protesters by asserting that the site is safe and the plant's location on a high cliff would save it from being hit by a tsunami. Jaitapur is about 260 miles (420 kilometers) south of Mumbai. Anti-nuclear protesters plan to march Saturday from a nuclear power plant near Mumbai to Jaitapur to oppose the new project. At present, nuclear energy forms only 3 percent of power available in India. The government has announced plans to increase the share of its nuclear power generation to 13 percent of its energy basket by 2030 to meet the rising demand for electricity.

                                                                                                               
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