Sunday morning witnessed peaceful protests in villages along the Marina Loop Road, with fishermen hoisting black flags on boats, fish stalls, net mending sheds and homes, to mark their opposition to the new Secretariat.

They demand that the State government return the lands belonging to Srinivasapuram to the village and drop the proposal to construct the Secretariat at Foreshore Estate.

Residents of Srinivasapuram took out a march, carrying black flags through the narrow roads of the hamlet.

“The lands originally belonged to fishermen. They were taken over by the [Tamil Nadu] Housing Board with the promise that we will get homes built on them. But we were cheated. We want those lands to be returned to us,” a fisherman said.

Among their demands is the construction of new houses for 15,000 fishermen and their families living along the Marina Loop Road, as most of their houses were built 40 to 50 years ago.

The fishermen have submitted their demands to the Chief Minister’s Special Cell. “We hope the government will take a positive decision on the issue. Since we are the stakeholders who matter the most, we request the government to appoint someone to listen to our grievances before taking such a major decision. We are holding protests only because nobody has discussed the issue with us,” said fishermen leaders G.R. Vijayan and K. Bharathi.

Fishermen of villages such as Nochikuppam, Bhavanikuppam, Domingkuppam, Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Mullikuppam/Srinivasapuram, Mullimanagar, Nambikai Nagar, Selvarajpuram and Irudayapuram have planned to hold a series of protests to draw the attention of Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay to their demands.