Cops foil Raj Bhavan protest bid
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, June 29 2012: Teams of Imphal West and City police stations foiled attempt by All Manipur Students' union volunteers and supporters from staging a protest demonstration in front of the Raj Bhavan today.

As a part of the one-day protest call of North East Students' Organisation (NESO) in pursuit of various demands, AMSU activists trooped out from TG Higher Secondary School campus with Raj Bhavan Gate the apparent destination.

However, the police teams barricaded their way at the main road and herded them back to TG School where a brief commotion ensued.

Later, an AMSU delegation was allowed to proceed to the Raj Bhavan for handing over a memorandum containing various charter of demands.

According to AMSU president Th Suresh the general council meeting of NESO decided to launch protest demonstration today at the Raj Bhavans of all the North Eastern States.

Describing the police action of preventing the student activists from carrying out democratic form of agitation as unfortunate, he pointed out that today's protest throughout the region was to denounce alleged indifferent attitude to the NESO demands which were already highlighted to the Prime Minister in 2001, 2003, 2006 and 2011 .

Cops stop students from proceeding towards Raj Bhavan

Informing that a joint rally of the region's student bodies was held at Shillong on June 7, Suresh listed the demands as constituting an Education Commission for North East under which facilities for pursuing new subjects/courses should be made available in the region's educational institutions; introduce inner line permit system to check influx of foreign nationals and migrant workers for protecting the region's indigenous communities; total repealing of the draconian AFSPA; freeze major projects that could devastate the region's overall environment and ecology; check encroachment by Bangladesh on the Indo-Bangla border; appointment of Grade-III and IV employees in Central Government undertakings/offices from amongst North East candidates; amicable resolution of the boundary disputes in the North Eastern States; constitutional safeguard of the North East region; and check racial discrimination of NE students and people in other Indian cities.

Alleging that a number of rape and murder cases in major cities of the country remain unsolved, Suresh cited the recent murder of Richard Loitam and Okram Laaba to substantiate the contention of North East people continuously facing racial discrimination in mainland India.