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The police take control of the road after dispersing the protesters at Vizhinjam on Sunday night.
| Photo Credit: TH
With the protesters unleashing violence for the second consecutive day at Vizhinjam, putting the district police administration on their toes, the Thiruvananthapuram City police have strengthened security at all important points, roads around the port site, and coastal region to prevent any further untoward incident.
Senior police officers led by the City Police Commissioner, have been put on round-the-clock alert to prevent the protesters from gathering in front of the Vizhinjam police station and the neighbouring areas.
Around 35 police personnel and a local media person, identified as Sherif M. George, were injured when the protesters laid siege to the police station. While the police personnel were injured during a scuffle to disperse the protesters, the media person was targeted by the protesters when he tried to shoot the visual of the protest. Around 1,000 protesters, including women and children, gathered at the site.
The protesters first vandalised the poles and flex boards erected on the road in front of the police station. They later they attacked the police with poles when the police tried to disperse them. Later, the police saved themselves from the attack by locking the station from inside. A police jeep from the Karamana police station which arrived at the spot was overturned by the protesters.
Later, the protesters attacked two more jeeps parked in front of the police station. The police van carrying more police personnel was also attacked by them. Though the police maintained that the people taken into custody in connection with the violence on Saturday were released soon after interrogation, they refused the heed the words and intensified the protest by bringing more people from the neighbouring coastal areas.
The police resorted to caning and lobbed tear-gas shells to disperse the protesters after more police personnel reached the spot, but each time they re-grouped and intensified the protest.
The protesters had on Saturday attacked trucks carrying construction material to the Vizhinjam International Seaport despite giving an assurance to the Kerala High Court that the vehicles entering the port premise would not be blocked.
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