KNPP: Udayakumar sends legal notice to PM

CHENNAI: Anti-nuclear activist S P Udayakumar, spearheading the stir against Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant today sent a legal notice to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his comments on the funding of the protests against the project.

Singh had in an interview to a magazine hinted that protests around Koodankulam were often funded by some NGOs based in the United States and Scandinavian countries.

"There is no basis whatsoever for this statement made against my client who is the coordinator of the protest," M Radhakrishnan, Udayakumar's advocate, said in the notice,adding his client was "deeply hurt" by the "false statement".

The notice also alleged the statement was made with an intention to inform the public that the protests against KKNPP were going on with the assistance of funds from the United States and Scandinavian countries.

It said Singh's remarks amounted to an imputation which in the estimation of the public "lowers" the moral character and credit of Udayakumar and may fall within the realm of defamation.

Udayakumar, coordinator of the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, hoped the Prime Minister would immediately make "appropriate amends" to his statements and not drive him to take recourse to law, the notice said.