Govt urged not to arrest protestors
Source: Chronicle News Service
Imphal, October 03 2022:
With regard to the protest carried out by students of Imphal College on September 29 over the upcoming college students' union election, students of the College have said that the protest took place due to the government disrespecting college principals and demanded to halt attempts being made to arrest those involved in the protest.
According to a statement released by a group of students of Imphal College, a democratic protest was staged on September 29 over the postponement of the scrutiny for the college students' union election by the Directorate of Higher Education without giving any valid reason.
During the protest, the students did not restrict any of the commuters on the road.
However, a commuter, instead of requesting the protestors for passing through, choose to argue ana hurl verbal insults on the students, thus, leading to a scuffle.
Stating that the director Directorate of Higher Education is responsible for the incident, the students recounted that a meeting of college principals was convened wherein the election date was to be fixed for October 6 .
However, on September 26, the Directorate convened a meeting of college teachers via online wherein no discussion on postponing of the election on account of violent incidents, which never occurred in any of the colleges, was held.
Although it is possible the college representatives might have suggested postponement of elections, if any incident occurred, or discussed the issue of one lone college, the meeting reaffirmed the election date on October 6.As such, the process to postpone the polls due to violence was initiated from September 25 at the instructions of the higher authority, which is unreasonable.
This is just disrespecting the meetings of the college principals and teachers, which upset the students.
Questioning why the matter of postponement was not brought up during the teachers' meet and why the Directorate is maintaining silence; the students enquired if the Directorate made any statement stating that the election was postponed due to poll violence.
They further questioned why other unrelated authorities are making the statements instead of the Directorate and whether there is any hidden agenda at play.
Urging the people not to take the students to be election-crazy, the students said that the election is part of co-curricular activities and it is also a democratic right.
The incident was caused due to lapses on the part of the authority concerned.
Meanwhile, after that fateful day, the five student bodies (AMSU, DESAM, MSF, KSA & AIMS) took note of the matter and its leaders convened a meeting with the education minister and authorities concerned.
After assurances were given that efforts would be made to bring about an amicable solution to the matter, which happened later in the day, the protest was called off.
The arrested students were also released.
However, attempts are being made to arrest the students involved in the protest, which is in clear violation of the agreement made between the five student bodies and the education minister.
The students of Imphal College then said that the incident would have never happened if the authorities worked as per the rule.
Thus, they condemned the attempt to cover-up the mistakes made by arresting and putting the blame on the students.
They then demanded the move to arrest the students to be halted immediately and appealed to the college authority and other students to shift their attention to education.