Imphal, June 2 : Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh today sent police teams to educational institutions in the valley to warn the authorities against allowing their students join the wave of protests triggered by the arrest of 13 students in connection with the killing of Manipur University professor and proctor Md Islamuddin.
Ibobi Singh, who also holds the home portfolio, looks after the police department.
The arrest of the students, including leaders of the Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur, followed raids on boys’ hostels after Islamuddin was gunned down by cadres of the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup on the university campus at Canchipur in Imphal West on May 25. Education secretary of the students’ alliance M. Thoithoi and the district leaders of the All Manipur Students Union are among those arrested.
“The police came to our school and told us not to allow our students participate in the sit-ins or any form of agitation. They explained to us that the students were arrested in connection with the murder of the professor,” a teacher of a school in Imphal said.
The alliance today threatened a 120-hour (five-day) statewide bandh after extending the deadline for the release of the arrested students without any condition, till tomorrow.
Earlier, it set yesterday as the deadline for their release.
The police will produce them in an Imphal court tomorrow.
“We are giving the government time till tomorrow to release the students, failing which we will intensify the agitation,” the publicity secretary of the alliance, K.C. Ibomcha, said.
The president of the Manipur University Teachers Association today reiterated its demand for an inquiry into the professor’s murder.
“We submitted the demand to Governor and chief rector Gurbachan Jagat and the chancellor of the university, P.N. Shrivastava. We are waiting for a positive response,” a spokesman for the union said.