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MADURAI: MDMK leader Vaiko was given a warm welcome by people in various villages that he passed through on the second day of his ``anti-neutrino march’’ on Sunday. The march was slightly delayed as Vaiko visited a party cadre in hospital who had set himself ablaze on Saturday. The worker, Ravi , 38 of Sivakasi, later succumbed to his injuries at a private hospital in Madurai.

The Bodi taluk police on Sunday booked 24 people including members of Naam Tamilar Katchi who staged a protest at Pottipuram , where the neutrino laboratory is to come up. Some villagers also joined them and there were some tense moments when the police asked them to come down. Vaiko started his second day’s walk from Chekkanoorani in Madurai, where he met the people. He addressed a public meeting at Usilampatti in the evening.

Meanwhile, G Sundarrajan, a member of the environmental organisation Poovulagin Nanbargal, who visited the villages of Pudukottai, Chinnapottipuram and Ramakrishnapuram interacted with the villagers who told him that they would not allow the project to come up for both environmental and religious reasons. ``We have been thinking about the consequences of the rock blasting on the environment, but these people told us that their village experiences high velocity winds in the month of April, a reason why they had grown shrubs to keep down the dust which used to otherwise engulf the entire village and cause problems. Now, with the shrubs being cleared for the project, they said that the dust problem was becoming unmanageable,’’ he said.

Women in the village also told the activists that they had been praying continuously in the night for the past two to three years hoping that the project would never be implemented. ``We sing our traditional songs to your deity Ambarappar, who is also in the form of this hill. We will never allow anyone to touch it,’’ they said.

