MUMBAI, April 19: Mobs attacked a hospital and blocked a highway in western India on Tuesday in a second day of violent protests against a planned nuclear power plant, after a protester was shot dead a day earlier.

The renewed violence prompted police to ban large public gatherings and political rallies, local television channels reported, with anger seething over the proposed power station amid Japan’s nuclear emergency.

A furious crowd targeted a hospital in Ratnagiri town, Maharashtra state, while state transport buses were pelted with stones and a highway blocked with burning tyres.

The Shiv Sena party called a shutdown in Ratnagiri town, 350kms south of state capital Mumbai. “The situation is calm and under control,” a police official at the Ratnagiri police control room said.

Anger has been brewing in the area since national environment minister Jairam Ramesh last week ruled out a “rethink” on the planned six-reactor, 9,900-megawatt facility in Jaitapur.—AFP