Source: Hueiyen News Service / NNN
Imphal, August 18 2010:
Employees of the Manipur Tribal Development Corporation on Wednesday staged a sit-in-protest against the assault and abduction of staff of the corporation by cadres of a militant group yesterday.
Two activists said to be working for PREPAK Project-II yesterday beat up three officials before abducting three other staff including the Executive Engineer, official reports said.
Executive Engineer of the MTDC, Md Sallaudin, Section Officer (SO) Samuel Hmar and driver of EE, Md Nasir were beaten up by the militants, who barged into the office room of the Executive Engineer yesterday afternoon, according to the staffs taking part in the protest staged on the office premises suspending all works of the day.
The cadres forcibly took along with them EE, Md Sallaudin, AE, W Chandramani and Accountant E Chandrakumar in an Alto car belonging to the Accountant.
The three were released around 4.30 pm yesterday itself at Keisampat Thiyam Leikai.
The assault and abduction took place around 9 am just when the staffs began to arrive for duty.
Two UG activists entered the office and closed the door and asked for EE, AO, AE, etc.
The insurgents were allegedly acting in reaction to the failure on part of the staff to give a positive response on the group's demand for percentage cut from the works executed by the engineering division of the Manipur Tribal Development Corporation, contract work for the construction of guest house near Zaled lake in Tamenglong district, Tourism office building under the Tourism Department in Imphal, the staff employees disclosed.
Alleging that the office neglected their demands, the two UG cadres beat up the staff of the office with sticks.
An employee by the name of Nasir sustained head injury.
He was hospitalized at Imphal Hospital and others received minor injuries, employees alleged.
Registering a strong protest against the act of the insurgents, the employees of the Corporation today staged a sit-in-protest on the office premises at Lamphelpat in Imphal suspending all official works of the day.