Mass rally protests Pangei blast
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, March 18 2012: Protesting and demanding a thorough enquiry into the bomb blast of March 15 which claimed the life of a minor girl besides injuring two other minor girls and three other women, a mass rally was taken out today in Pangei area.

Ahead of the rally, a sit-in-protest was also staged at Pangei Keithel.

The protest rally organised by the Pangei Yangdong Women Welfare Association in association of other civil organisations started from Pangei Keithel and marched till Pangei Maning Leikai, the last point of the Manipur Police Training Academy complex before returning to the starting point.

Participants of the rally carried placards which read as, "We want CBI enquiry into Pangei blast", "Bombs are not playthings", "Check proliferation of explosives", "We want peace", "Stop crime, save future generations", "Stop killing innocent civilians", "We demand Chief Minister's immediate attention", "Women MLAs should pay extra attention", "Book the culprits", "Both State and non-State actors should stop victimising the public with guns and bombs", Check smuggling of guns and explosives" etc.

Rally staged against bomb culture

Later, the participants of the rally gathered together and adopted some resolutions, the foremost being the demand for CBI enquiry into the bomb blast.

The second resolution was that the matter should not be hushed up by offering some money.

The third resolution was also in the form of a demand to the Manipur Police Training Academy to find how many bombs are scattered in and around Pangei.

Later speaking to media persons, secretary of the Pangei Yangdong Women Welfare Association Hijam Tembi Leima said that neighbouring villages of Pangei have come across many unaccounted bombs since the Manipur Police Training Academy was set up there.

Some three/four years back, three children were killed when they unknowingly played with an abandoned bomb at Waiton.

Another child from Pangei who sustained grievous injuries on the abdomen is still undergoing treatment at huge expenditures.

Now people of Pangei have nagging fear that they may come across bombs on paddy fields, roads or road-side drains.

Tembi Leima further appealed to both security forces and insurgents not to trigger any more bombs in Pangei area.

Secretary of the Women Action for Development Subita Mangshatabam who also took part in the mass rally remarked that the bomb blast was a crime of very serious nature.

She asserted that, in spite of their sheer large number, security forces deployed in the State are unable to protect live and properties of the people.

She demanded that a thorough enquiry should be conducted to ascertain what kind of explosive it was and how it was brought inside the rented house.

The Government should check if any more bombs are scattered around in civilian areas and work sincerely to avoid such incidents in future.

Women Action for Development, Life Care Foundation, Social Action Development Organisation, North East Dialogue Forum and Conflict Widows' Forum were other co-organisers of the protest rally.