'Deploy Central forces to protect Mullaiperiyar'

Chennai, Jan 2: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today demanded deployment of Central forces to protect the Mullaiperiyar Dam following reports of damage caused to its main parapet wall.

An official release here said Mr Karunanidhi had written letters to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz in this regard following reports that some miscreants had damaged the parapet wall of the dam.

In his letters, Mr Karunanidhi urged Dr Singh and Mr Soz to provide security to the dam by deploying Central forces.

In a suspected act of vandalism, a portion of the parapet wall of the dam was found damaged and it was noticed by a staff of the Public Works Department yesterday.

The wall was damaged to a length of six ft and a width of 1.5 ft.

The incident had taken place despite to deployment of police force by the Kerala government to protect the dam.

The dam row had been a bone of contention between the two states with Kerala refusing to honour the Supreme Court verdict allowing raising the storage level to 142 ft from the present 136 ft and Tamil Nadu demanding implementation of the Apex court order.

After the Chief Ministerial level talks in New Delhi in the presence of the Centre did not yield the desired results, the second meeting, involving the Tamil Nadu PWD Minister and Kerala Irrigation Minister to collect data on the pattern of water usage, too failed to solve the impasse.

The Tamil Nadu government was now mulling with the idea oncef again moving the Supreme court on the issue.

Dravidar Kazhagam General Secretary K Veeramani also urged the Centre to provide central security as the incident could not have happened without the knowledge of the Kerala Police, who were guarding the dam. In a statement here, he recalled the demand made by Mr Karunanidhi that the Central forces should take over the security of the dam after the Kerala government summoned Naval divers to assess the safety of the dam without the knowledge of the Tamil Nadu government.

Yesterday's incident had made it crystal clear to the Centre that the dam's security should be handed over to the Central forces, Mr Veeramani said.

UNI

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