November 16, 2002	Saturday	Ramazan 10, 1423

TRIVANDRUM, Nov 15: Indian police on Friday arrested 17 activists of an extreme leftist group for attacking a warehouse of US soft drink giant Coca-Cola in the southern state of Kerala, police said.

The activists belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) earlier in the day attacked the warehouse in the state’s northern Calicut district with iron rods and stones, smashing window panes and Coca-Cola bottles.

“They were shouting slogans against multinational companies and we have arrested them,” Sanjeev Patjoshi, police chief of the district, said.

Coca-Cola is assessing the costs of the damage, said Kosal Ram, a spokesman for the warehouse.

No one was injured in the attack.

In August more than 700 environmental activists and residents of the northern Kerala border town of Palakkad, adjoining Calicut, staged protest rallies demanding the closure of the US beverage giant’s factory for allegedly depleting ground water and contaminating the environment.

Coca-Cola has been previously targeted in India. In May assailants on motorcycles hurled three bombs at its bottling plant in the lawless eastern Indian state of Bihar.—AFP