Police in southern India on Tuesday ramped up safety across the $900 million transhipment port being constructed by billionaire Gautam Adani’s conglomerate after scores of individuals had been injured in clashes with protesters from a Christian fishing neighborhood.

Construction on the mega port mission in Vizhinjam on the southern tip of India has been halted for greater than three months by the protesters, who’ve blocked the positioning’s entrance with a makeshift shelter. They blame the port’s growth for coastal erosion that has hit their livelihoods, an accusation the Adani Group denies.

Over the weekend, villagers stormed a police station to protest the arrest of some opponents to the mission, and greater than 80 individuals had been injured in the course of the clashes, together with 36 police. To forestall contemporary violence, Kerala state police had been sending reinforcements to the Vizhinjam space, senior police officer Ajith V instructed Reuters.

“We are getting ready to face any situation,” he mentioned. At the station, situated some 3 km (2 miles) from the port, greater than 100 law enforcement officials, some armed with batons, stood guard.

Another state police officer, who declined to be named, mentioned safety had additionally been elevated across the port which is close to Kovalam seashore, an space fashionable with vacationers.

The port is of strategic significance to each India and Adani, Asia’s wealthiest man and the world’s third-richest.

Once accomplished, it’s going to develop into India’s first container transhipment hub, rivalling Dubai, Singapore and Sri Lanka for enterprise on the profitable East-West commerce routes.

The first part of development was on account of be accomplished by end-2024. The Adani Group has mentioned in court docket filings that the protests have precipitated “immense loss” and “considerable delay”.

The firm has lodged a lawsuit in opposition to the Catholic clergymen main the protests, in addition to the federal government of Kerala for not taking any motion.

But regardless of court docket orders saying the protests shouldn’t intervene with development, the villagers have refused to budge, saying they’ll solely take away their shelter – a 1,200 sq. toes construction consisting of poles holding up a corrugated iron-roof – as soon as the mission’s development is known as off.

“The protests will continue,” one of many protest leaders, Joy Jerald, instructed Reuters close to the shelter.

The Adani Group says the port complies with all legal guidelines and has cited research that present it’s not linked to shoreline erosion. The state authorities additionally says any erosion was on account of pure causes.

Adani has earlier confronted protests in Australia, the place environmental activists had launched a “Stop Adani” motion to protest his Carmichael coal mine mission in Queensland state. There, activists involved about carbon emissions and harm to the Great Barrier Reef pressured Adani to downsize manufacturing targets and delayed the primary cargo from the mine by years.

(Writing by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Miral Fahmy)