Imphal, November 06 2008: THE INTER-STATE tourist bus services which connect Manipur with the rest of the country will resume normal service as usual from tomorrow onwards.

An emergency meeting of All Manipur Inter State Bus Service Association (AMISBSA) has taken a decision in this regard after considering the inconveniences caused to the passengers and the government's assurance today.

All inter-state tourist bus services have been suspended since October 24 last in protest against the burning down of an Imphal-Guwahati passenger bus (MN01-1664) on October 23 night in Assam's Lahorijan area bordering Nagaland.

At this juncture, the bus service association is forced to resume their service to address the grievances of the stranded passengers, besides the government's assurance of providing security escorts.

"The state government assured security escorts cover of buses till Mao gate" A Budha Luwang, President of AMISBSA told the reporters at north AOC near here.The state government is also initiating to handed over the remaining portion of the route in Nagaland and Assam to the army troops under 3 Corps, Budha added.

On top of this the government had also assured that the necessary ex-gratia amount for the two deceased passengers and other injured persons would be provided.

"Thus we decided to resume the service from tomorrow" he informed.

The ticket counters of the various travel agencies basedin Imphal also started to open from on Thursday afternoon.

The functionaries of the bus service association also supporting the Senapati District Students Association sponsored ongoing economic blockade along the sensitive National Highway 39 popularly known as Imphal-Dimapur highway over the non-completion of the highway construction works,said "it is a rightful demand".

Mention may be made here that the blockade is on since November 1 last.

In view of the development, all the goods laden transporters which were stranded at Mao gate were escorted back to Imphal since the last few days.

It is worth mentioning here that a dawn to dusk state wide Bandh had also been called on October 27 last to protest the burning incident.

Many organizations including Zeliangrong Union, Zeliangrong Youth Front and All Zeliangrong Students' Union (Assam, Manipur and Nagaland) have even demanded the Kuki Liberation Organisation/Kuki Liberation Army which had owns up responsibility for the incident to compensate the victim families.

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