Cinema halls shut after UG demand
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 10: After passenger bus services, autorickshaws and stone crushers, screening of films in the cinema houses in Imphal Bazar area have ceased screening of films from today following huge monetary demands from UG groups which allegedly threatened the owners of the cinema halls to shut down if they could not meet the demand.

On the otherhand, students and teaching staff of Standard Robarth English Higher Secondary School, Canchipur staged sit-in-protest to denounce disruptive activities of a UG.

(Left) students of Standard Robarth English Hr Sec School protesting bomb threat and (right) a cinema hall shut due to UG demand

According to information received by the press, all the cinema houses did not screen movie as a result of the threat.

To discuss this new development, a meeting of the Film Forum Manipur has been convened tomorrow.

It may be noted here that after ban on screening of Hindi movies by an armed outfit and the cinema houses lying in idle for a long time, the State witnessed a boom in Manipuri digital film thereby reviving the cinema halls.

Today digital film making has attained the status of an industry providing livelihood to many people and accruing income to the State Government.

It is estimated that the loss to be suffered by a cinema house in cancelling all its shows for day is around Rs 30,000 .

There are in all three functioning cinema houses in Imphal Bazar area.

According to informed sources, propreitors of Pratap Talkies and Shankar Talkies in Lamphelpat recieved telephone call from a UG group demanding that five cinema halls within Imphal area cough up Rs 1 lakh each or shut down their establishment.

Meanwhile, in protest against leaving a bomb by two persons who identified themselves as activists of the proscribed KCP as gift for the principal of the school yesterday, students and staff of Standard Robarth English Higher Secondary School staged a protest demonstration in front of the school today.

Parents and guardians of the students also participated in the demonstration demanding to know the real identity of the KCP group responsible for leaving the bomb.

Placards with slogans like 'We want free education zone', 'It should not be the theory of the revolutionary groups to lay hands on students and teachers', 'We hate terrorism', 'We stand against terrorism', 'Earn money by working not through terrorism', 'School is not a battle field', etc were held by the protestors during the demonstration.

Coming out strongly against the incident, a joint statement released by the teaching staff, non-teaching, students and guardians of students of the school said that leaving the bomb inside the school campus during the intervening shift of the morning and the afternoon session of the first terminal examination currently going on in the school was really unfortunate.

If the bomb had exploded causing mass casualty among the students, would a simple clarification brought out through the newspapers satisfy the people ? the joint statement raised a poser.

It further observed that targeting educational institutions as a trend by way of placing bomb would definitely give a serious impact on the ongoing efforts being made to bring about new direction in the system of education in the State.

The joint statement also demanded to know from all concerned the reason behind placing of the bomb at the school causing fear and panic among the students and the staff at a time when voices are being raised from all quarters to make education a free zone.

The statement further appealed to all concerned to ensure such incident is not repeated in the school which has been striving for all round excellence of the students.

Meanwhile, DESAM has strongly condemned the incident of leaving a bomb at the school and appealed to all concerned to not to target educational institutions in future and help in maintaining the sanctity of the educational institutions through co-operation in the ongoing joint effort of making education a free zone.