Imphal, Nov 14 (IANS): Hundreds of school and college students across the six districts of Imphal Valley on Thursday organised multiple human chains in front of their respective educational institutions to protest the abduction of three children and three women by armed militants in Jiribam district on November 11.
Wearing black badges and holding black flags and banners, hundreds of students of many schools and colleges staged multiple human chains demanding the immediate release of the three children and three women from the clutches of the militants in the hilly region.
Wearing their institutional uniforms, the students comprising boys and girls raised slogans and fervently urged the central and state governments to take all steps to rescue the captives.
Thursday was Children's Day to mark the birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who is fondly remembered as Chacha Nehru.
Organised by the students wing of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an apex body of the Meitei community, the students carried placards written with "Today is children's day", “release the innocent children” and “Release our friends".
The COCOMI, various other civil society organisations, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress also have been demanding the government to "rescue" the six untraced people, alleging negligence by both state and central forces leading to the abduction.
Police officials said that various security forces have been continuing their hectic operations to locate and rescue them.
Police said that in the November 11 encounter with the CRPF 10 Kuki militants were killed and the militants also kidnapped 10 people, all inmates of a relief camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam district’s Borobekra sub-division.
The police official said that during the search operations after the incident in Jakuradhor village, where several houses were also burnt down by the armed militants, two bodies of elderly civilians -- Maibam Kesho Singh (75) and Laishram Barel (61) -- were found.
He said that another person was found alive and rescued and another civilian came back on his own to the police station while the six people remained untraced so far.
Adjoining southern Assam, ethnically diverse Jiribam was largely unaffected in the 18-month-long ethnic riot in Imphal Valley and in the Kuki-Zo-dominated mountainous areas.
Jiribam has been witnessing violence after the mutilated body of a farmer, belonging to the Meitei community, was found on an agri farm in June this year.