Imphal, July 20 2010: Festival spirit on Kanglen (last of Rath Jatra) could not be dampened by the 15-hour Manipur bandh imposed by the opposition, People Party (MPP) which concluded at 3 pm Tuesday with less response from the people.

Amid the bandh, thousands of devotees thronged the Shree Govindajee Tempel and ISKON temple in Imphal for worshiping the Hindu God, Jagnath move on the streets on chariots to mark the occasion.

Traffic police at Palace compound where the Govindajee temple in Imphal east and ISKON temple at Ghari on the Tidim road faced a hard time in controlling the crowd thronging the temple to witness the Rath Jatra in the afternoon before the bandh concluded.

Normal traffic in the Imphal and other parts of the state could not be disturbed by the bandh called by MPP in protest against alleged excessive meted out by the police on duty towards the demonstrators organised by the party against price hike, non-availability of cooking gas and other essential items.

Shops, business establishments and other institutions opened in normal way.

However, inter-district passenger buses were off the road for the day giving little impact to the normal movement of the people.

Mention may be made that at least four workers of the party wounded when police resorted in firing tear gas and used other mob control devices in preventing hundreds of demonstrators marching towards the Assembly complex when the session was in progress yesterday.

Five leaders of the party including its president Dr Nimaichand Luwang were detained for a brief period of time by the police in a move to control the mob.

They were later released at night, at about 7.15 pm without any condition.

The opposition party was protesting against government's failure to control the prices of the essential commodities and failure to return normalcy in the availability of essential items even after the one of lifting the economic blockade on the national highways.

The opposition party is criticizing the congress led SPF government in the state for not taking seriously on the issue of hiking prices and shortage of essential commodities even after one month pass since the lifting of the ANSAM sponsored economic blockade on June 18 .

Alleging that police acted excessive to the demonstrators marching in democratic way and used faulty language towards its leaders and workers while blocking them from proceeding towards the Assembly complex, MPP imposed the bandh effective from last midnight till 3 pm of today.

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