'Held For 2 Hours, Money Taken': Rajasthan School Teams' Manipur Video Viral

These students travelled by train and car from the northwestern desert corner of the country to a border state far away in the northeast to participate in a national school sports championship, and they returned home victorious. But they allegedly had to spend two hours at gunpoint and pay extortion money to some suspected insurgents. The students and an adult made the allegations in a video message that has gone viral on social media.

One of the students who was seen in the video allegedly came to Imphal in a flight, a Rajasthan team official told NDTV today. The matter could be more about grievances over travel arrangements and train seats and not only highway extortion, the official said.

The Rajasthan school contingent's girls' team took the championship trophy, the boys' team came second, and the state team as a whole also secured the second spot in the 69th National School Games Championship held in Manipur's capital Imphal last week.

In the video message, the students said they are happy they have done well in the games. However, they highlighted some issues that spoiled their experience - first, not getting proper travel facilities, and second, extortion by "armed Kukis".

"While coming from Rajasthan, armed Kukis held the students at gunpoint for two hours. They took money from the team," the man said in the video.

"This happened on top of the difficulties the students faced in travelling. All of them, including the girl students, did not have confirmed train tickets. Despite the very bad arrangements, our students won many trophies," he alleged.

"There were only 24 tickets for 52 members of the Rajasthan team," he said.

The students in the video alleged all their tickets were on a sharing basis, even for the long train journey.

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After the video went viral, the Manipur government today ordered the police to look into the allegations and take action. The Directorate of Youth Affairs and Sports of the state which is under the President's Rule also ordered the police headquarters to coordinate with their personnel in Senpati and Kangpokpi districts.

NDTV has seen a copy of the order.

"I am to request you to kindly take up necessary action to verify the information and take legal action on the same... currently circulated in social media... about some extortion activities... on the way from Dimapur to Imphal reportedly put up by the contingent team of Rajasthan, who came to participate in the 69th National School Games Championship at Khuman Lampak, Imphal," the government said in the order.

Coach Sohanram told said the team left Rajasthan on January 11. They went to Delhi and took another train to Dimapur. He said the train was scheduled for January 11 morning but it was late. The train arrived in the afternoon. After that, they reached Dimapur on the evening of January 13. From there, they took a car to Imphal and during that journey the incident happened, he said.

The championships control room officer, K Daivish, said a police team visited the sports complex in Imphal on Monday and began a probe. He said the Rajasthan contingent left Manipur without filing a complaint, which made it difficult to proceed based solely on the viral video.

The issue has raised concerns as Imphal continues to host the national-level school games, with teams from different states participating across multiple disciplines at the Khuman Lampak sports complex.

The Rajasthan education department said they have received no information. The Jaipur Police Commissioner also said no one has contacted him over the matter, and added he will take cognisance as soon as he gets any information.

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