NSA cuffs on 5 students

Imphal court grants bail to eight in Manipur professor death case

The arrested students being produced in court on Tuesday. Picture by Eastern Projections Imphal, June 3 : Five of the 13 students arrested in connection with the campus killing of Manipur University professor Md Islamuddin have been detained under the National Security Act while the rest were freed on bail by an Imphal court today. Four unknown assailants had shot dead Islamuddin on May 25. The militant Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup claimed responsibility for the killing the next day and charged the professor with “committing wrongs” in the university’s student union election. Acting swiftly, police arrested 14 persons — 13 students and one rifleman of the 3rd India Reserve Battalion — on charges of conspiracy to kill the professor. They produced the 13 students in the court of the additional chief judicial magistrate, Imphal, R.K. Memcha Devi, here today. The police told the court that five of the 13 accused were detained under the National Security Act by an order of the district magistrate, Imphal West, A. Ibocha Singh, and sought 15 days’ judicial remand for the other eight. The five students detained under the NSA are Ksh. Kiran, Arambam Thoithoi, Phijam Dinesh, Thoudam Shyam and Thangjam Lankeshore. The judge granted bail to the other eight students on a surety bond of Rs 30,000 each after hearing the bail plea by their respective lawyers. They are Laishram Bijenku- mar, Thongram Ran- bir, Ksh. Ranjan, Laishram Joyprakash, R.K. Suresh, Namoijam Dinesh, Wahengbam Binoy and S. Robindro. All the accused students are members of the Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur, the All Manipur Students Union and the Manipuri Students Federation. Some of them are research scholars in the university. The 14th accused, IRB rifleman Kangjam Dimajit Singh, is still in police custody. A large number of police personnel were deployed around the court complex at Lamphel in Imphal West to prevent any trouble from students’ organisations. Some members of students’ organisations and relatives of the students turned up at the court complex.  The police did not allow any person not related to the case to go inside the court. The detention of the five students under the NSA came even as school students and meira paibis held sit-ins here, demanding unconditional release of the students. The Democratic Students Alliance of Manipur had set today as the deadline for the Okram Ibobi Singh government to release all the students. It has threatened to launch a series of agitation, including a 120-hour statewide bandh, against the arrests.