Tension Mounts at LG Polymers’ Vizag Plant, Angry Villagers Demand Closure

Visakhapatnam: High tension prevailed at the LG Polymers’plant at RR Venkatapuram village near Vizag in Andhra Pradesh as irate villagers staged a protest on Saturday demanding immediate closure of the plant.

The protesters placed two bodies of the dead in front of the factory main gate as part of the agitation while some youths ‘barged’ into the plant even as state Director General of Police D G Sawang was inspecting the vapour leak spot and talking to the management on the measures taken to restore normalcy.

The bodies were brought to the village for cremation on Saturday from the KGH mortuary after post-mortem.

The angry villagers, however, stopped the ambulances in front of the plant gate and laid the bodies on the road.

Emotions ran high as the villagers demanded that the plant be shut down immediately as it had “completely ruined” their lives.

A styrene vapour leak from the plastics manufacturing plant of a South Korean company, caused the death of 12 persons on Thursday.

Hundreds of villagers, who were provided shelter in Visakhapatnam after the vapour leak, returned to the village this morning, raising slogans against the factory management and demanding its closure.

The police posted near the plant for security duty tried to prevent the villagers from going near the plant but the latter allegedly broke the security cordon and staged a sit-in protest near the factory gate.

Police initially took some of the protesters into custody and whisked them away but scores of others entered the scene subsequently.

At one point, many of the villagers barged into the plant through a small entrance gate and one woman was seen falling on the DGP's feet and pleading that the unit be closed forthwith

Visakhapatnam police commissioner R K Meena directed his officers and men to drive out the villagers from the factory premises, following which police necked them out.