The Black Sunday
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: September 24, 2013 -

While the incident of baton-charging and firing tear gas canisters by the police on the agitating students of Manipur Institute of Technology (MIT), Takyelpat on Sunday afternoon leaving 20 of them injured including one who has come all the way from Noida to study in the institute, was simply shocking, what has come as a complete surprise was the forcible eviction of all the students including girls from their hostels at the dead of the night by the Principal in-charge of the institute, thus, forcing them to seek shelter in some nearby houses and community hall.

Leaving aside the question of whether the demand of the students to remove the Principal in-charge is right or wrong or whether the charges of corruption and incompetency levelled against the principal in-charge by the agitating students could be substantiated or not, the manner in which the issue had been left unattended by the State Government and its concerned authorities until the ugly and black Sunday incident broke out is also very unfortunate.

In fact, discontentment among the students of Manipur Institute of Technology (MIT), the one and only engineering institute in the State, has been brewing for quite sometime until the students decided to go on a hunger relay strike on September 16.

As far as we know, as the authority concerned choose to remain silent over the issue and ignore it altogether, the agitating students had even taken out a protest rally on September 20 and intensified their stir further even to the extent of boycotting their internal assessment test.

Moreover, instead of any sincere attempt made from the side of the authorities concerned towards resolving the issue while there was still time and energy, even the visit paid by the Vice Chancellor of Manipur University to meet agitating students had infuriated not just the students of the institute but also their teachers with the insensitivity of pointing fingers to the teachers of instigating the students to revolt against the Principal in-charge.

So, convening a meeting of the governing body of the institute to discuss the issue and the problems being faced by the students after all that should not have happened have already taken place, thus, leaving a deep scar on everyone involved, is not something that could be applauded.

Nonetheless, there is an urgency to find out a solution to end the present impasse in the lone engineering institute of the State.

Having said that, one question that we would like to pose is, can a State which is trying hard to be projected as the right destination for education to people in other parts of the country and beyond, afford to treat its agitating students with not just baton-charge and tear gas canisters but also forcible eviction from their hostels to seek asylum elsewhere?