Not panic buying but being practical : Inflicting pain on the people
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: October 21 2015 -
Not panic buying but rather practical buying.
The blockade is yet to start but already a good number of petrol pumps have run dry and this probably had to do with the report which The Sangai Express carried regarding the proposed blockade along the National Highways from October 21 midnight to midnight of October 31.
Top this off with the threat that if the demands put up before the Government are not addressed to within the ten days period than an indefinite blockade would come into force from November 2.
The Kuki People Liberation Front/Kuki People Liberation Army is behind the blockade call and the blockade is to protest the alleged indifference of the State Government to the nine ‘Kuki martyrs’ killed at Churachandpur during the protest against the three Bills passed by the State Assembly on August 31.
The other grievance is the indifference of the State Government to the issues of the Kuki people.
Tough to say what is expected from the side of the State Government with regard to the nine people killed at Churachandpur during the protest, but more than likely that the State Government will not respond to the points put up.
This will obviously give room to make the indefinite blockade threat more than a threat and Manipur could well be staring at yet another marathonesque blockade in the coming days.
Blockade, this is a term which has entered the lexicon of all the people in Manipur and everyone must be fed up of this.
However it is more than clear that to many, this is still seen as a bargaining tool to bring the Government to its knees.
The Sangai Express does not have the record or the figure to say how many issues have been solved after subjecting the people to severe hardships whenever any blockade is imposed, but it is there to be seen and heard that whenever there is any blockade it is the people who stand to lose the most.
However this has not dissuaded anyone against resorting to this practise.
Be it student organisations, frontal organisations, armed groups or any organisation claiming to represent any community, all have resorted to this unacceptable form of arm twisting the Government and subjecting the people to immense hardships on numerous earlier occasions.
And so it stands that this time too the story will be no different.
It is not the Government which will feel the first pinch, but the common people but so clouded is the thinking of some of these power players that they refuse to acknowledge the bare fact.
Even before the blockade actually came into force, most of the petrol pumps in Imphal had run out of stock.
Serpentine queues were seen at every petrol pump from early morning and by noon most of these pumps had run out of stock.
Now what ? Is it going to be a case of people having to buy petrol at Rs 150 or even Rs 200 from the black market, again ?
This is about fuel, and think about the other necessities of life, and one can imagine how the daily existence of the people will be in the next few days.
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