Imphal, September 22: Even as the UCM sponsored boycott of NH-39 is still on, the Government has decided to provide security escort to lift fuel from outside the State and transport the same through NH-39.However oil tanker drivers who are supporting the agitation launched by the UCM are refusing to take the wheel.

Speaking to The Sangai Express, DIG (Ops) Mishra said that police have rounded up 48 vehicles including LPG cylinder carriers and kept them at the 2nd MR campus.

The vehicles will leave tomorrow at 8 am to lift fuel from outside Manipur along with full security escort, informed the police officer.

However in a show of solidarity with the course of action taken up UCM, sources from the All Manipur Petroleum Tanker Drivers' Union informed The Sangai Express that the drivers are not ready to take the wheel.

They also said the condition is not conducive for the oil tankers to pass through NH-39.The coercive method employed by the State Government to let the drivers take the wheel and drive through the highway is akin to openly supporting and encouraging looting and extortion on the highway not to speak of molesting women folk, they added.

Mention may be made here that trucks and vehicles which transport essential items had suspended service along NH-39 since September 7 following the call of the UCM while tankers had stopped plying on this route since September 16.The Drivers' Union further said that the police had impounded about 50 oil tankers and LPG carriers since yesterday.

The vehicles were rounded up from the road and from the residence of the owners and drivers.

All the vehicles are presently kept at the 2nd MR campus.

Moreover the police are also on the look out to impound more vehicles.

So far there has been no official intimation from the side of the authority that the vehicles would be sent to lift fuel, they maintained.

The Union has instructed the drivers who are held at 2nd MR campus not to take the wheel tomorrow.

Majority of the drivers are also not keen to pass through the highway in the present situation.

Meanwhile four fuel leaden trucks are stranded at Kohima, Mao and Tadubi.

The vehicles could not come along with the security escort earlier as they had developed some mechanical snag.