Venu held, shifted to hospital

THRISSUR: The Laloor Malineekarana Virudha Samara Simiti’s nine-day-old hunger strike in protest against the delay in shifting the accumulated garbage from Laloor dumping yard, took a new turn on Wednesday with the police arresting fasting social activist K Venu and shifting him to the District Government Hospital here after his health deteriorated.Around 6 am on Wednesday, a police team led by Assistant Commissioner T K Thomas arrested Venu from the venue in front of the corporation office. A medical check-up done on Venu by a team of doctors on Tuesday night had revealed that his health condition was worsening. The doctors had detected a rise in the blood sodium level and recommended that Venu be taken to a hospital. “His blood sodium level rose to a worrying point and the doctors opined to shift him to a hospital,” the police said. Venu was admitted to the intensive care unit of the District Government Hospital. After he refused to take food, doctors injected and infused medicines intravenously and he is continuing his fast in the hospital bed. Venu said he would stop his fast unto death only after the authorities start removing garbage piled up at Laloor. “He is out of danger and his blood sodium level is normal. But we have kept him in the ICU to ensure round-the-clock monitoring of his health,” said doctors attending to Venu.  Venu had begun his fast unto death on February 14 demanding a solution to the waste management problems at Laloor. The Samiti accused the corporation of having failed to implement the decisions taken at a high-level meeting convened by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy in November 2011. The Chief Minister had directed the civic body to remove the garbage that had piled up at Laloor before January. He had directed the civic body to set up two decentralised waste management plants at Panankuttichira and Kerala Agricultural University campus. The recent fire at Laloor dump yard had made things worse and the garbage disposal from the Corporation areas stopped  for the past few weeks after strong protests from the residents of Laloor. An estimated 160 tonnes of waste is being generated within the corporation limits daily.