Mangaluru, Apr 24: The residents of Jokatte village, who have been helplessly protesting against air and water pollution caused by the coke yard and sulphur recovery units of Mangalore Refinery and Petroleum Limited, have resorted to Palestine model protest.
Continuing their agitation, the residents on Thursday threw stones at workers who were installing a 30-ft high-wind break-wall at the MRPL’s coke yard near Jokatte.
Abdul Jaleel, one of the protesters, said that the residents of Jokatte followed the model of helpless Palestinian freedom fighters, who symbolically throw stones at mighty tanks of Israeli Army to register their protest against occupation.
MRPL claims that the wall is being built to prevent dust from the yard flying towards the residential areas. The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board had served two notices on MRPL asking it to take steps to prevent pollution.
However, Muneer Katipalla from the Nagarika Horata Samiti that is leading the protest against MRPL, said that villagers threw stones as they were not convinced that the wall would be able to prevent pollution.
The workers are working with security cover. “We have been stopping them from creating trouble for the last few days. Today, the villagers were more in number and threw stones at the workers,” Mr. Muneer said.
Mangaluru’s Assistant Commissioner of Police Ravi Kumar reached the spot after the incident. He said that the received a complaint that the villagers had been protesting thus for the last four days.
“When I visited the spot with my team on Thursday, there were only a few villagers around and we sent them away. The workmen had already left the area,” Mr. Ravi Kumar said and added that no complaint has been filed with the police so far.
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