A Catholic priest has vowed to quit priesthood and face any punishment if an allegation is proved that a Church-led protest against seaport project has received foreign fund to destabilize the country. “Our hands are clean and ready to face any probe,” says Father Theodacious D’Cruz, one of the conveners of the fishermen’s protest against Adani international seaport at Vizhinjam coast in Thiruvananthapuram district in the southern Indian state of Kerala .
Hundreds of thousand fishermen and their family members have been protesting against the construction of the private seaport since July 20 after Kerala’s Communist-led government refused to accept their demands for resettlement and rehabilitation.
“Our protest has now entered the 105th-day and we are getting good public support, but we are being accused of accepting foreign funds to destabilize the country and its developments,” Father D’Cruz told on November 1.
The priest was responding to the allegation that Aleyamma Vijayan, the secretary of Sakhi Women’s Resource Centre, received funds for the ongoing coastal protest. She is the wife of A J Vijayan, a trade union leader and a petitioner in the National Green Tribunal against the port project.
Aleyamma has filed a defamation suit against the news channel “News 18” that carried the controversial news. In the petition, she said the organization has been working in human rights since 1996 in Thiruvananthapuram. It is registered as a Public Charitable Trust with a Foreign Contribution Regulation Act registration to receive funds.