Imphal, September 05: Even as employees of Sericulture Dept were on a sit-in-protest against demands by no less than four banned outfits, suspected underground activists placed a Chinese made hand-grenade at the Lamphelpat office room of Manipur Pollution Control Board's Member Secretary N Minaketan today.

According to reports, at around 10.15 am two unidentified youths showed up at the office room of the MPCB official and after calling out a sweeper who was cleaning the room placed the explosive device.

Among others MPCB Chairman (MLA) E Dwijamani arrived at the office to take stock of the situation while a little later a team of Lamphel police station retrieved the grenade.

In condemnation of the act, MPCB employees staged sit-in-protest in front of the office while an official speaking on condition of anonymity maintained that there is no information of any UG group threatening or serving demand notes.

It is also informed that as a precautionary step, the district administration had ordered locking up the main gate of MPCB office about two months back with the employees instructed to attend office through the main entrance of the Imphal West Deputy Commissioner's office complex.

On the otherhand, employees of Directorate of sericulture demonstrated in front of their office located at Lamphelpat in denunciation of four monetary demands served by groups of the PREPAK and KCP organisations.

interacting with newspersons on the sideline of the protest demonstration, the Director (Sericulture) K Thaibema disclosed that the two UG groups had been insisting on monetary demands from sericulture projects being funded by the Japan Bank of International Cooperation (JBIC).

The Director also informed that an amount of Rs 134.52 crores had been utilised in the implementation of JBIC approved projects for which evaluation work would begin in October month.

It is further conveyed that these UG groups have been insisting on work order allotment, percentage cuts from the projects' budget as well as from the employees' salary.

As the Department had not been cowing down to the UG groups' antics a live round (bullet) was handed over to the Top Khongnangkhong residence of the Director in addition to forcibly shutting down project office and training centre located at Kwakta.

Sericulture projects are being implemented with the direct involvement of about 5000 workers in addition to about 30,000 persons engaged in related works.

The protesting employees pointed out that with Sericulture projects providing job opportunities to a large number of people there needs to be cooperation and understanding from all section of the society as continued threat and disturbances might lead to premature cessation of the income generating programmes.