A small section of citizens fighting to protect and preserve water bodies in the southern suburbs of Chennai find themselves alone as miscreants continue to have a free run damaging the precious natural resources with people's representatives and the government machinery maintaining a stoic silence. A hue and cry was raised last year when the swelling waters of the Adyar river engulfed many residential localities near its banks and also when overflowing waters from lakes entered houses, causing severe damage. In 2005, anti-socials had a free run damaging lakes and in one lake near Tambaram, they even went to the extent of using explosives on lake bund.