With protests in Kerala intensifying against the proposed high-speed rail project, K Rail authorities have decided to take it easy and temporarily halt survey stone laying across the state.
For more than a week, women, children, and the elderly blocked roads and removed survey stones in at least six districts throughout the state. Despite the heavy police presence, the affected people thwarted all attempts to lay stones. At a number of locations, opposition members Congress and the BJP clashed with police.
Stone-laying has been temporarily stopped to avoid provocation, according to a senior official with the Kerala Rail Development Corporation, the project’s nodal agency. He said that the government had not issued any directives in this matter. However, opposition leader VD Satheesan said it was a diversionary tactic by the ruling CPI (M) to buy time till the party’s meeting in Kannur, Kerala, in the first week of April.
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