Kerala Silverline project row: Police, protesters clash over laying of survey stones

Thiruvananthapuram: The attempt to lay survey stones for the Kerala government's ambitious SilverLine rail corridor project, which was resumed after a gap in the state, triggered a clash between local residents and the police near Kaniyapuram in the capital district on Monday.

As the protest intensified, the officials were forced to stop the procedure temporarily and leave the place.

A group of local people, led by the activists of the Opposition Congress, blocked the officials when they arrived with the equipment to lay survey stones.

The clash broke out after the police, who escorted the officials, tried to remove the protesters from the area.

In visuals aired by local television channels, a policeman could be seen kicking some of the protesters with his boot. The injured protesters were rushed to a nearby hospital later.

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One of the protesters said they would continue to gather at the place and they would never allow officials to lay the survey stones.

He also said the residents of the place did not get any prior information regarding the procedure.

However, police rejected the allegations of high-handedness against the protesters, saying they did not boot any protesters deliberately but only tried to give protection to K-Rail officials.

It was after a gap of almost one month that the authorities resumed the survey stone laying process, which had led to mass protest in several parts of Kerala since the beginning.

Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly V D Satheesan later visited the injured people at the hospital, where they were admitted for treatment.

Though the Left government is going ahead with the multi-crore semi-high-speed rail project, it is being opposed by the Opposition Congress and the BJP as well as by the local people in many parts of the southern state.

The SilverLine rail corrdior, envisaged to cover a 530-kilometre stretch from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod, is estimated to cost around Rs 64,000 crore.

The project aims to make transportation easy along the entire north south of Kerala and reduce travel time to less than four hours as against 1214 hours.

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