Imphal, April 17: The Working Committee of the Apunba Lup has decried the action of MEELAL activists in burning down the State Central Library building destroying all the valuable records and documents kept in the library, and described the incident as another Puya Meithaba episode in the history of Manipur.

The MEELAL activists set on fire the Library building on April 13 to demand the implementation of Meetei Mayek from this year.

In a statement jointly signed by co-ordinators, Sunil Kayam and Y Nabachandra, Apunba Lup said although the efforts being made by MEELAL to revive and promote Meetei Mayek is appreciated, the act of setting on fire a storehouse of knowledge and reducing all the important records and documents handed down by the forefathers to cinders is condemnable.

The act of the MEELAL activists is akin to helping Shantidas Goshai in burning the Puyas of Manipur, the Apunba Lup said and added that the incident of burning down the library is another episode of Puya Meithaba in the history of Manipur.

The ugly incident has also definitely put the ongoing agitation in bad light, the statement said.

The Lup said that the Meetei Mayek issue would become all the more complicated in the aftermath of the Library inferno and appealed to the Govt to bring about an amicable solution at the earliest possible.

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