Imphal, July 20: Stating that the ongoing ANSAM sponsored economic blockade has taken its toll on the public, All Manipur Bar Association (AMBA) has urged the Government to take up necessary legal action against the agitators.

Why the Government is still keeping mum when the people have suffered at the most?, AMBA president Khaidem Mani questioned.

Even as the economic blockade has entered a month, the Government has not effected arrest of even a single agitator, Mani said at a press conference today at the Bar office located inside the complex of the Cheirap Court.

Contrary to the mode of current action, the Government had booked many agitators involved in the earlier stirs under the National Security Act, Mani observed, while ruing that the Government only keeps on appealing to ANSAM to call of the stir.

At this stage, it is not time for the Government to appeal to the agitators and other NGOs backing them to call off the stir, AMBA president opined.

On the other hand, the Centre should evoke its Constitutional duties to safeguard the personal liberties of the citizens.

The Centre should not watch as a silent spectator when three student bodies have threatened to launch secessionist movement if the current issue remains unaddressed, Manipur said while insisting upon the Centre to intervene and save the lives of its citizens before the matter goes out of hand.

Reacting to the purported statement made by Lok Sabha MP Mani Charanamei to Home Minister Shivraj Patil that the State Government is communal, the AMBA president said the every statement incites communal enmity.

Hence the MP can be booked u/s 153 (a) of the Indian Penal Code, he said.

Mani asserted that nothing is communal when the State declares June 18 as Integrity Day.

From the protest against the declaration of June 18 as Integrity Day by the State Government, it is quite obvious and open to all that ANSAM wants disintegration, Mani observed.

AMBA general secretary Abdul Quayum who was also present at the occasion said that ANSAM's economic blockade tantamount to depriving the basic needs of the people and hence it is an unlawful act.