Security up in Marina Beach following protest calls

Chennai: Anti-hydrocarbon project protest calls made in the social media kept the cops on tenterhooks in the Marina Beach on Tuesday.

Messages doing the rounds urged people to congregate on the Marina similar to that of the jallikattu protests to impress upon the Centre to drop the hydrocarbon extraction projects in the Cauvery delta. Four persons who came looking to join the protest were removed from the spot after their details were collected.  

Two of them said they had come to witness the protest while the other two maintained that they were there to join the protest. They were informed that Marina remains out of bounds for any kind of agitations/protests/demonstrations, and that there were other places earmarked in the City for protests for which prior permission had to be obtained. "We are monitoring the social media. We would initiate stringent action against rumourmongers in social media” said Mylapore DCP