Imphal, April 21: Tension gripped Chandel district from early morning yesterday after villagers of Serou and Toupokpi raised the war cry following the destruction of the Serou-Thingkhanphai Chakpi Kacha dam by Toupokpi villagers on the ground that the dam had affected their land, early morning yesterday.

As tension rose, the Imphal Chakpikarong road was blocked form yesterday till late into the evening today.

Timely intervention by Serou AC MLA K Ranjit and MLA Bijoy Koijam helped to defuse the situation today evening.

Enraged over the destruction of the dam, people of Serou, Singtam and Thingkhanphai blocked the road since last night.

No vehicles were allowed to pass through.

On the other side, the people of Toupokpi put up a notice warning all people of Serou not to come to their village.

The notice said that MLA K Ranjit should bear all the consequences if any undesirable incident takes place.

As the tension became palpable, members of the Sugnu-Chakpikarong Ching-Tam Peace Committee rushed to the place and appealed to all to calm down and reason things out.

K Ranjit accompanied by Bijoy Koijam and officials and public leaders first went to Toupokpi village and met the people there.

Later the MLA then went to Serou and appealed to the people to let peace prevail.

Following the appeal of the MLA, representatives of Toupokpi Village Authority met the public leaders of Serou and Thingkhanphai and agreed that the damaged part of the dam would be repaired by the people of Toupokpi and Serou on April 25.It was also agreed that if the Govt agrees to repair the land affected by the dam at Toupokpi, no money will be demanded from Serou.

However if the Govt does not act, then the Dam Committee will dole out assistance from time to time.

For the year 2005, K Ranjit gave Rs 10,000 as compensation to the Toupokpi people as compensation.

The MLA also appealed to all the people to promote peace and abide by the principle of peaceful co-existence.

K Ranjit also expressed regret over the assault of some persons by IRB personnel while cracking down on the protestors.

The 1300 feet long dam provides irrigation facilities to over 500 acres (paris) of paddy fields of Serou, Singtam etc.

The dam was built about 50 years back and the contract work of the dam was handed to some individuals by the villagers.

The contractors were given 24 tins of paddy per acre annually for their service.

This practice was however brought to a halt by the local MLA K Ranjit last year and the dam was built afresh from Rs 2 lakhs forwarded by K Ranjit from local area development fund.

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