IMPHAL, June 11 NNN : The All Tribal Students Union, Manipur (ATSUM) has threatened to intensify its ongoing agitation by imposing indefinite economic blockade in all the national highways leading to Manipur any day from now.
Under the code name ROTO (Reckoning of the Others), ATSUM’s agitation has completed 9 days today but the state government is still ignoring to address our demands,” said ATSUM leaders while adding, “Since the government seems to understand only the language of bandh and blockade, ATSUM is all prepared to resort to such radical forms of agitation including indefinite economic blockade any day.”
According to the ATSUM leaders, the chief minister of Manipur or the state government is shying away from addressing the tribal problems head-on. “For three/four times some ministers have unofficially and casually approached us but the chief minister has so far not hinted his interest to address the problems,” rued ATSUM leaders.
Regarding the budget estimates of receipts for the current Financial Year of Rs 8990 crores against the expenditure estimates of Rs 9397.78 crores, ATSUM leaders pointed out that out of this hefty amount only Rs 30 crores have been earmarked for Hills and Tribal Affairs.
“Actually, Hill Area Committee (HAC) is the right authority in this connection but the state finance department has manipulated this process and therefore only Rs 30 crores was alloted for the Hills and Tribal Affairs,” further pointed out ATSUM leaders while asking, “Why the tribal MLAs have not raised any question when such discrimination is happening?” The ATSUM asked all the tribal MLAs irrespective of their party affiliations to stand up unitedly for the cause of the tribal people.
ATSUM then proposed to have a strong tribal based civil organisation in Manipur which will be for a common good of the tribal people.
UNA adds The Kuki Students’ Organization-General headquarters has threatened the state government not to initiate any talk with the “Pseudo ATSUM”.
In a statement of the student body that threatened government not to hold talks with “Pseudo ATSUM”, the KSO said that if government happened to do so, the student body would assume the government as betrayer of whole tribal people and the KSO-GHQ would be compelled to launch agitation.
Any decision or understanding is arrived between the state government and “Pseudo ATSUM”, KSO-GHQ would declare it as “Null and Void” the statement added.
It s is closely monitoring the activities of “Pseudo ATSUM” as well as the government. It would be a wise decision to stay away from the “Pseudo” student body.
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/atsum-lines-up-threat/
