Our bank accounts frozen after protest against Adani port, alleges Kerala Latin church
The archdiocese was neither able to meet its routine expenses nor bear the cost of training seminarians after the accounts were frozen, a pastoral letter said.
The archdiocese of the Latin Catholic Church in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram on Sunday alleged that its bank accounts has been frozen by the Union government after the fisherfolk’s protest against the Adani port project in nearby Vizhinjam, The Indian Express reported.
In 2022, a group of fisherfolk, under the aegis of the Latin Catholic diocese of Thiruvananthapuram, had begun protesting against the Rs 7,500-crore project led by billionaire Gautam Adani’s ports business. They alleged that the project would cause coastal erosion and damage their livelihoods.
The protest took a violent turn on November 26, 2022, after demonstrators prevented the Adani Group from resuming construction at the project site, where work had been suspended for four months. The construction at the port site subsequently resumed on the directions of the Kerala High Court.
On Sunday, Archbishop Thomas J Netto, in a pastoral letter read out in all churches, said that the archdiocese was neither able to meet its routine expenses nor bear the cost of training seminarians after the accounts were frozen following the protest against the port, The Indian Express reported.
“As the accounts were frozen, the archdiocese is facing difficulty to receive even ordinary aids for mission work,” the newspaper quoted Netto as saying in the letter. “The situation remains unchanged.”
The letter urged individuals to contribute to help the diocese with the expenses.
