MUMBAI (Reuters) - Indians protesting against a planned nuclear power plant attacked a hospital and torched buses on Tuesday and at least 20 people were injured a day after an anti-nuclear activist was killed in police firing. Protests led by opposition politicians shut down towns near the site of the $10 billion plant in Maharashtra state in western India where anger over land acquisitions has intensified after the nuclear crisis in Japan. The situation is very tense out here, protester leader Amjad Abdul Latif Borkar said. Five demonstrators were taken to hospital with bullet wounds, and at least six policemen were injured, said the administration head in the town of Ratnagiri. Chief of police in the town, 60km (38 miles) north of the site of the planned plant at Jaitapur, said at least 20 people had been injured. Protesters attacked and damaged a hospital to prevent a government autopsy on the activist killed the other day as the demonstrators believe the autopsy would not be impartial. Police wielding wooden sticks tried to disperse the protesters who set fire to tyres to block a road to the site of the planned 9,900 megawatt (MW) plant, television pictures showed. The hardliner Hindu nationalist Shiv Sena opposition party called for a strike in support of the demonstrations. Last week, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh restated the government's intention to go ahead with construction of six reactors at the site in what is touted as the world's largest nuclear power complex. The conflict is one of many battles across the country between villagers and planners of industrial projects that have sharpened the debate on how Inida sustains its economic boom. The plant site, which is flanked by several small fishing hamlets, is 300 km south of Mumbai. Protesters stormed a police station near the site on Monday, smashing computers and ripping up papers, television pictures showed. Environment Minister Ramesh said, the government's opponents are whipping up opposition and India has no option but nuclear power. "They have just made this a political issue," he told a news channel, referring to the Shiv Sena party. "I have said it before and say it again, apart from nuclear energy we have no other choice." Opponents of the plant have put up posters in Jaitapur depicting scenes of last month's devastation at Japan's Fukushima plant and warn of what could be in store for the region in the Western Ghats north of Goa. India suffers from a peak-hour power deficit of about 12 percent that acts as a brake on an economy growing at nearly 9 percent and causes blackouts in much of the country. About 40 percent of Indians (500 million people) lack electricity. According to India, it operates 20 mostly small nuclear reactors at six sites with a capacity of 4,780 MW, or 3 percent of total power capacity. It hopes to lift its nuclear capacity to 7,280 MW by next year, more than 20,000 MW by 2020 and 63,000 MW by 2032 by adding nearly 30 reactors.