Greetings from Chalakudyriver Protection Forum We give below the chain events from the Hearing conducted by Legislative Committee to the decision taken by Athirappilly Action Council to declare Hartal on the burning issue
Legislative Committee on Environment conducts hearing on Athirappilly HEP amidst dramatic scenes 2006 ... Chalakudyriver Protection Forum submits memorandum to Legislative Committee. 2006 Dec 22 : Public hearing on the issue proposed to be conducted by the Committee. The hearing did not take place as the sitting was ‘postponed’ due to political interventions. Next 22 months : Repeated requests for conducting hearing. Some committee members also kept on demanding a fresh date for hearing. 2008 October 18 : Public hearing by the Legislative Committee announced for 22nd October through newspapers. 2008 October 22 : After 10 am At PWD Rest House, Chalakudy, 7 MLAs including the local MLA gather. 4 CPI (M) MLAs led by the local MLA demand that hearing should be cancelled. Other committee members including Chairman do not agree to this. The 4 CPI(M) MLAs decide to boycott the sitting after giving dissenting note. Chairman and two other MLAs proceed to the Athirappilly Panchayath Committee Hall, the venue for hearing. One MLA had already reached the venue directly. (There are a total of 9 MLAs in the Committee. One of the members did not turn out at all) 10.30 AM onwards : People started to flow into the hearing venue in large numbers. By 11.15, the hall was full to its capacity and started overflowing. More than 500 people participated. 11.45 AM Public hearing begins. The Chairman of the Committee explains the background and procedure. Invites CPF Convener to raise his points. As the CPF Convener took stage, some 30-40 members of CPI(M) including its Area Secretary, some GP Presidents, Municipal Councilors etc strode into the hall raising slogans against the Legislative Committee and environmentalists. The drama continued for about 15-20 minutes even as a large number of policemen stood around the protesters without taking any action. Meanwhile, some of the participants – mainly Youth Congress members – raised slogans against the protesters. The Forum members including Chairman pacified them. Finally the police persuaded the protesters to go out of the hall. They sat at the entrance of the hall and continued slogan shouting. The hearing lasted about 2 hours. Even as the hearing was nearing completion the CPI(M) members again strode into the hall and forced an abrupt end to the hearing. Ironically, even as the slogan shouting against the hearing continued, a couple of them participated in the hearing. The Legislative Committee members then visited the Project site – the dam site, two tribal settlements and two waterfalls. 23 October, 2008 Police registered case against 19 persons for obstructing the hearing. Out of this, 10 are from CPI(M). The rest were from the Athirappilly Action Council and CPF who had actually taken effort for the conduct of the hearing. The list is curious; selected leaders from political political parties involved in Athirappilly struggle and SNDP. 24 October 2008 Emergency meeting of CPF, Action Council protest against the fake case. Decides to call for Hartal in Chalakudy Legislative constituency from 8 am to 4 pm on 29.10.2008. Announces the same at a press conference on 25.10.2008 Murari for Chalakudyriver Protection Forum --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
