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NT Bureau
Chennai, Aug 7:

        Dr Subramanian Swamy, president, Janata Party, has demanded that N K Raghupathy, chairman and managing director of the Sethusamudram Corporation Ltd (SCL) be sacked 'for speaking blatant lie at a press conference recently'.

        In a statement issued from Harvard in USA, Swamy alleged that Raghupathy's contention in the press conference that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had communicated to him that the Rama Setu in Indian Ocean was a natural formation, which debunked the Hindu belief that it was built on the direction of Sri Rama.

        Raghupathy had claimed that the NASA officials had told him that the Rama Setu, referred to as Adam's Bridge, was a natural phenomenon and there was no evidence of any human activity. This is in contrast to the claims by a section of the Hindus that the Setu was built by Lord Rama to cross over to Lanka to save his wife Sita from Ravana.

        The remnants of the bridge, which are visible in the Palk Strait area, are held in veneration by the Hindus. But the SCL authorities want to demolish the structure to build a canal which would reduce the navigation time between the east and west coasts of the country.

        Swamy, presently at Harvard University on teaching assignment, said in the statement that the NASA told him that it had not made any such communication. 'NASA has clarified to me that they cannot speculate on the validity or invalidity of other origin narratives for the Palk Strait islands, thus denying the claim of the chairman of the SCL,' said Swamy.

        He also said that NASA has described Reghupathy's claim as misrepresentation and misreporting. 'Our response to inquiries regarding Adam's Bridge is based solely on the information captured in the astronaut photography dataset. Astronaut photography does not provide information on the age of islands in the Palk Strait nor can it provide information on the subsurface structure or composition of the islands,' NASA said in its reply to Swamy's query.

        Swamy said he would be meeting NASA officials on Friday to discuss about the Rama setu issue.

        'Upon returning to India, I shall file a contempt of court case against Union Shipping Minister T R Baalu in the Supreme Court,' said Swamy whose Public Interest Litigation on Rama Setu is coming up for hearing in the apex court by the Chief Justice's Bench on 13 August.