This Article is From Jul 12, 2015

Despite Curfew, Protests Still on in Imphal

Imphal is under curfew for the past four days.

Imphal: It's been more than four days since Manipur's capital Imphal is under curfew, but the protesters who are demanding tough restrictions on the entry of outsiders - both Indians and foreigners - in the state are continuing their struggle.

Some of the protesters, including school children, have defied the curfew and set tyres on fire and littered the road with stones. Kanishk, a Class 9 students who studies at a boarding school in Assam and is here for vacations, says there is nothing wrong in school students being part of protests, but agrees he doesn't totally understand the gravity of the issue. "Maybe some of us so it for the thrill of it, but a young boy died and I have a right to protest," he said.

A Class 11 student died on Wednesday as protesting students clashed with the police. The protesting students were part of an organisation - the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System - which had been agitating for a tough law regarding an Inner Line Permit regime, a rule to restrict the entry of outsiders into the state.

Indefinite curfew was then clamped across the city and the situation remains tense.

At the home of Sapam Robinhood, who was killed, there is grief and anger, and an odd voice of dissent too. "I think it is not right to use such young children for political purposes," says a man, not willing to be named.

In the last few years, Manipur has seen large scale protests related to the inner line permit issue. The protests have been more intense in Imphal, where unlike other areas of the state, outsiders can also buy land and settle down.

The protesters claim that the current laws remain lax, and have led to outsiders taking away most employment opportunities in the state.

Earlier in March, the government had passed a bill making it mandatory for all outsiders to register themselves with authorities upon entering the state.

Currently the permit system is in place in the other north-eastern states of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.
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