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Naxals blast Coke unit

Our Bureau

Guntur, Oct. 21

NAXALITES of the Peoples War Group attacked and blew up a portion of the bottling unit of the Coca Cola company at Atmakuru village in Guntur district in the early hours of Sunday. The village is situated on the Mangalagiri-Tenali route. There were no c asualties.

According to one of the guards who witnessed the incident, 20 or so armed naxalites arrived at the factory gate at 2.30 a.m. in a jeep and barged in, threatened the security guards and tied them up.

They planted explosives in the factory and detonated them. However, the damage was minimal as one of the employees had switched off the power supply. The boiler room and some of the transformers were completely damaged. The operation, in which gelatine s ticks were used, lasted more than an hour.

While departing, it is learnt, the naxalites raised slogans hailing the PWG and denouncing US imperialists. A paper was pasted to the gate, denouncing US attacks on Afghanistan.

Some of the gelatine sticks did not explode and later the bomb disposal squad defused them, it is learnt. The loss is not yet estimated.

Our Delhi bureau adds: Coca-Cola has deplored the bomb-attack on its bottling plant located at Atmakuru near Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday morning.

The bottling plant was heavily damaged by the bomb attack, but there were no casualties since the incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning when there was no employee inside the plant other than the night duty electrician.

Expressing shock at the incident, Coca-Cola said it was concerned about the safety and security of its employees and property and urged the Government to protect its plants and establishments against such vandalism, a statement issued by the company said here on Sunday.

Coca-Cola has said that all its operations are Indianised. ``All our 5,500 employees are Indians. Besides, over 6,000 people are indirectly employed in jobs like sales, distribution and transportation.

``There is also a big franchise network dedicated to the business of the company. We deplore such motivated attacks on our people and property,'' the statement said.

The intruders bombed the boiler plant, the vehicle parking area and administrative building. They also tried to destroy the production unit without success as the electrician inside the plant switched off the main supply as soon as he spotted the miscrea nts.

While the boiler plant was completely blown off along with the roof, all the four vehicles at the parking lot were gutted. The administrative building was also damaged.

The intruders left a hand written note in Telugu at the plant site, threatening similar actions against other business establishments. The note claimed the responsibility of the People's War Group, the statement said.

Pic.: A view of the Coca-Cola bottling plant at Atmakuru in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh after the attack by the People's War Group on Sunday.