The stone-pelters had come on bikes and targetted the house of Suresh Keezhattoor at 8 pm on Tuesday.Kannur: Unidentified people hurled stones at the house of Suresh Keezhattoor, who is leading an agitation against the levelling of paddy fields for constructing a bypass.
The stone-pelters had come on bikes and targetted the house at 8 pm on Tuesday.
The protesters are organised under a farmers' group which is locally known as Vayal Kilikal, meaning the birds of the field.
The bypass has been planned through the paddy fields at Keezhattoor to avoid the widening of road at Taliparamba town as part of the four-laning of the National Highway.
Although, the route of the bypass was earlier charted through an area adjacent to the existing road passing through the town, the alignment was shifted to Keezhattoor to avoid the demolition of about 120 houses and other buildings.
As per the new plan, 4.5 km of the 6-km bypass has to be built by levelling a vast stretch of paddy fields at Keezhattoor.
The route of the bypass was surveyed and marked along the fields even as the protest organised by the Vayal Kilikal was on.
CPM workers had formed Vayal Kilikal as a farmers' collective to oppose the levelling of paddy fields.
Kodiyeri proposes overbridge
With no end in sight for the agitation, CPM general secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan pitched for the building of an overbridge at Keezhatoor.
Kodiyeri said the state government is willing to co-operate with the Centre if the latter decides to build an overbridge instead of the bypass at the disputed area. He said the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has to take a call on this. The CPM leader expressed this while talking to media after offering tributes to party stalwart AK Gopalan on his death anniversary on Wednesday.
"Neither (chief minister) Pinarayi Vijayan nor (public works minister) G Sudhakaran had decided on building the bypass through Keezhatoor. The NHAI, which is under the central government, took the decision in this regard. It is the responsibility of the state government to take over the land identified for the project by the NHAI," Kodiyeri said.
While expressing the resolve to carry on with the ongoing project, the CPM leader made reference to successful protests against industrial projects in Bengal's Nandigram village while the Left government was in power there. "Don't expect to repeat Nandigram elsewhere. If the bypass is not built, other parties stand to gain in elections by alleging that Marxist strongholds are backward. This had happened in Tripura. People who were misled should make amends. Don't stall development citing environmental concerns. Any bid to topple the government won't succeed as people lined up the party will protect it. CPM will refrain from attacks and violence," Kodiyeri added.
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