Imphal, May 06 2010: The All Tribal Students' Union Manipur (ATSUM) on Thursday strongly condemned the Court directive to arrest its president Thomas Taishya in connection the blockade imposed along the National Highway 39 .

'It is an attempt of some vested interest individuals and publicity mongers using their connection with the legal fraternity to drag the name of ATSUM on an issue," said the ATSUM" .

The tribal students' body's reaction came following the Gauhati High Court order to arrest its president, Thomas Taishya and to produce him on the same Court on May 13 .

Decrying the Public Interest Litigation (PIL), ATSUM fumed that due to the 'needless PIL filed by one person-who never tries to understand the ground reality of the crisis the state is facing nor the tribal people, has managed to convinced the Gauhati High Court in directing the Manipur's DGP to arrest president, Thomas Taishya.

"We will not budge an inch from where we stand and is even willing to surrender not only our president but all the present executives and thousands of members on our roll wherever and whenever the state law enforcing agencies demand us," declared ATSUM general secretary, Apao Haokip.

The tribal students' body then cautioned the Manipur government the outcome while carrying out the exercise, saying, "Let the matter that concerns the government be dealt and tackled by them alone and let the civil societies be confined in a space where all are supposed to be-jumping in to the issue will only aggravate the tense atmosphere rather than solving," it said..

It observed that the Manipur government has indomitable to go ahead with the District Council elections in the tribal hill districts inspite of vehement objection from different tribal groups and civil societies.

On the Autonomous District Councils (ADC) related issue, ATSUM said that it had marathon discussions and consultations on the said subject but finally decided to stay away from it as there can be no consensus among its different constituent units.