HYDERABAD, India, 25 March 2003 — As protests against the US-led invasion continued across India yesterday, Maoist rebels in a southern province targeted global soft drink giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi, police said yesterday.
“The exact cost of damage is still being assessed, but it appears the rebels targeted the soft drink giants and some other stores selling Indian-made foreign liquor to protest against the war,” Anil Kumar Puneeth, superintendent of police, told AFP.
Members of the banned People’s War Group, India’s oldest and most violent left-wing rebel group, destroyed hundreds of Coke bottles, blasted a Pepsi warehouse and attacked liquor stores in two districts of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh late Sunday.
Around half a dozen armed rebels raided a warehouse stacked with Pepsi bottles and used explosives to raze it to the ground, police said.
The attack took place in Anatapur, 350 km south of the state capital Hyderabad. Police say the rebels distributed anti-war pamphlets and shouted slogans against the US and British governments.
They also slammed the Indian government for “taking a soft stand against the two imperialist nations.”
In the eastern state of West Bengal, which has the country’s longest-running Marxist government, lawmakers yesterday marched to the American Center in the state capital, Calcutta, shouting anti-war slogans and carrying placards.
Police stopped the procession as it approached the high-security American Consulate.
Legislators from all parties in the 294-member house also submitted a memorandum to the central government opposing the war.
“The house adopted a unanimous resolution on Friday opposing the US strike on Iraq and decided to take out a procession to register its protests before the US diplomats,” opposition leader Pankaj Banerjee said.
Left-wing activists, along with the Muslims in India, have been the most vociferous in condemning the war.
