Actress Amala Nagarjuna wastoday arrested along with nine others, including Greenpeaceactivists, for staging a protest near historic Charminardemanding halting of new coal mining projects in forest areas,police said.
Amala and other activists were arrested under section151 CrPC (arrest to prevent commission of cognisable offence)by the Charminar Police and later released on personal bonds,a senior police officer said.
On a day when Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajaninaugurated the eleventh meet of the Conference of the Parties(COP-11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) here,Amala and some Greenpeace activists unfurled a banner, paintedwith the message 'Stop Coal Crimes--Save Indian Forests' fromthe monument seeking suspension of further mining inidentified forest areas.
The activists demanded that the government stop allnew coal mining activity in forest areas, according to arelease from the Environmental NGO.
"Coal mining is destroying the huge biodiversity inIndia besides homes of tribal communities and threateningnatural habitat of Indian Tiger and that is why I amprotesting today along with those who signed GreenpeaceIndia's petition demanding the government to stop destroyingour forests," Amla said.
The 44-year-old actress cum animal welfare activisthas acted in a number of Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam andHindi films.
On Amla's arrest, Divya Raghunandan from Greenpeacesaid, "the present policy of the Indian government will fellover 1.1 million hectares of pristine forest, displace tens ofthousands of indigenous people and wreck the rich biodiversityof India."