TIRUNELVELI: PMANE coordinator SP Udayakumar posted on Facebook onWednesday that he feared a threat to his and family’s life after an online news report on Monday claimed that he had received money from foreign institutions to stall developmental projects in India.
Denying the news report, Udayakumar posted a detailed note refuting the claims made by the report. He questioned the motive of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) by sending a report on foreign funding to NGOs to the new government at the Centre when IB had already submitted it to the previous government. The report said that 17000 unregistered non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were allegedly stalling developmental projects across India and one of them, funded by a US-based organisation, operated in Koodankulam to stall the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project.
Following the news report, leading newspapers quizzed Udayakumar about his alleged relationship with Kirwan Institute for Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Ohio State University of the US and with one German citizen, Sonntag Rainer, who was hurriedly deported from India in February 2012.
Rejecting the news report, Udayakumar said: “I was selected to work as an off-campus fellow at Kirwan Institute by the institute director John A Powell with whom I had worked at Institute of Race and Poverty, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, from 1997 to 2001. At Kirwan Institute, I researched on various themes such as globalisation, racism and minority welfare, but I never wrote any report on developmental works in India.”
“Similarly, Sonntag Rainer was just an acquaintance in my home town Nagercoil who participated in our anti-nuclear event. But, I did not exchange any maps or information with him under any circumstance,” Udayakumar stated.
“If Rainer had committed illegal or dangerous things, why did the Indian authorities hurriedly deported him without taking any legal action? I raised the same question when he was deported in February 2012,” asked Udayakumar.
Udayakumar said: “The Indian authorities must begin to believe that ‘ordinary citizens’ of India such as farmers and fisher folks have a mind of their own and can take an intelligent stand on issues like setting up of nuclear power park”.