Manipur CPI joins ILP stir

IMPHAL: Joining the popular demand to implement the Inner Line Permit System (ILPS) in the state, a large number of CPI's Manipur unit members staged a demonstration at their Irabot Bhavan office complex here on Wednesday.
Issued by the Centre, ILP is a travel document to allow inward travel of a country's citizen in a protected area or state. The system is enforced in Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh but was withdrawn from Manipur in November, 1950.
The assembly had passed resolutions twice to pursue the Centre for implementing the system in the state, but the Centre did not do anything in this regard. On Monday, chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh said his government was not ignoring the people's demand and an all- party delegation would press the Centre on the matter.
Manipur state council CPI leader and former minister N Mangi lambasted the Congress government in the state for its failure to pressurize the Centre on the issue during the UPA's long regime.
Stating that the party would insist its national leaders on the matter, Mangi appealed to other parties ? Congress and BJP ? to follow suit. Left leaders, while condemning the police brutality on agitating students, demanded that the government release all women agitators, who were arrested a few days ago.
In another incident, 34 migrant workers, who were coming to Imphal in a truck, were rounded up by women agitators at Koirengei here on Tuesday for not possessing identity cards. The truck was burnt down by a mob in the afternoon for bringing migrants to the state.