Imphal, July 31 : Police today dispersed women vendors who staged a sit-in in Imphal Market demanding an inquiry into the recent shootout leading to the death of a woman and punishment to the guilty police personnel.
Th. Rabina Devi, a resident of Lamsang was six months pregnant when she was killed in a gunfight between police commandos and a gunman on Bir Tikendrajit Road in Imphal city last Thursday.
Five shoppers were wounded. The slain gunman was later identified as Ch. Sanjit.
While the women vendors, staying off from regular business, were dispersed by the police at 1pm, another sit-in was on in front of the gate of Imphal Palace.
The demonstration jointly organised by the Conflict Widow’s Forum, Women Empowerment for Jusitce, Helping Hand Centre and Self Support Group echoed the same demands. Members of the groups include widows of the violence victims and those whose husbands died of AIDS.
“The police firing in the crowded city is nothing but showing utter disrespect to the lives of many people present there,” the convenor of Conflict Widow’s Forum, Thoubal unit, Ningthoujam Sunibala said.
According to her, timely medical attention would have saved Rabina and the baby in her womb.
Sunibala became a widow after her husband was shot dead by BSF personnel in Thoubal district several years back.
The groups had earlier planned to hold the sit-in at Andro parking in Imphal East but shifted the venue to Imphal Palace in the same district after the police did not allow them to hold the sit-in at the venue planned.
Later, they went to chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh’s office and submitted a six-point charter of demands.
The demands include a judicial inquiry into the firing, finding out the personnel who killed Rabina, making lessons on human rights and gender rights compulsory in police trainings, counselling for the children affected by conflict and a solution to the problem of insurgency.