Alappuzha: Nobel laureate and renowned bio-physicist Michael Levitt was left stranded in a house boat in Alappuzha district of Kerala on Wednesday after strikers stopped the boat during its cruise here. A case has been registered against those who stopped the boat upon a complaint filed by the owner of the boat at the Pulinkunnu police station, Alappuzha.
Several foreign tourists, including Levitt and his spouse, were stranded for hours in the house boat. Michael Levitt, a Stanford University professor, won the Nobel prize in Chemistry in 2013 for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems. He shared the prize with Martin Karplus and Arieh Warshel.
"Being stopped by criminals on the backwaters sends a very bad message to tourists. It is as if a bandit stopped us at gunpoint and delayed us under the threat of force for one hour," Levitt wrote in an email to his tour agent at Kottayam.
In the email, which was later released to the media, he also said the person who blocked them "ignored all arguments that tourists were exempted" from the strike.
"This person, who did this, ignored all arguments that tourists were exempted and that I am a VIP guest of the Kerala government. He was obviously acting, knowing that he was safe from prosecution. Sadly, this makes me fear that India is sinking into lawlessness," Levitt wrote in the email.
Reacting to the incident, State Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran said: "We will take strong action against those anti-social elements who blocked the boat. Levitt was here as a state government guest. We will also look into whether there were any lapses in providing security to him."
The trade unions had earlier informed that Kerala's tourism sector was exempted from Wednesday's general strike. However, this promise was not honoured by the strikers, boat owners complained.
The house boats which started journey from Kumarakom on Tuesday had anchored at the R block at nightfall. The strikers prevented the boats from starting off in the morning.
Reports suggest that boats were stopped at several other places in Alappuzha.
"Tourists have been stranded at the boats from 7am in the morning," Maniyara Boats operator Kens informed.
The three boats which were held back for hours, was let off only by 12:30pm in the afternoon.
Levitt at Kerala University
Michael Levitt had visited Thiruvananthapuram's Karyavattom University prior to his tour in Allappuzha. The towering peepal tree in the university premises was planted by Levitt in 2010. During his visit to the campus this time, he embraced the huge tree.
