A public meeting on Sunday at Akham Ground in Imphal West district has given the government seven days to find the two missing youths who were suspected to have been kidnapped by miscreants.
Both the missing boys, Avinash and Anthony, are from Akham village under Lamshang Police Station.
The missing case of the teenagers has brought various CSOs, Meira Paibis, social activists, student bodies and politicians together under a single platform and is discussing the course of action to find the whereabouts of the two students.
The public meeting attended by representatives of almost all organizations resolved to form a joint JAC of all missing persons to organise an agitation comprising all student organisations of the state.
The meeting also resolved to approach the court and other platforms at national and international level to find out the whereabout of all missing persons; to solve the hardship face by Meitei community due to ongoing crisis; an agitation of all people with a single agenda and a strong agitation to find the missing two youth as soon as possible.
“If the government fails to find the two missing youths along with their bodies within seven days, then all CSOs, political parties, student organisations and whoever attends today’s meeting will follow in their footsteps”, the meeting resolved.
It further resolved that all the CSOs, student organisations, political parties would sit together and discuss if any issue like killing, missing, or violence take place in future.
Ningthoujam Anthony and Maibam Avinash – both students of class X - went missing on November 5 and law enforcers are still clueless on the whereabouts of the two teenagers even after their cell phones were recovered from a petrol pump in Senapati district.
Besides the two students, the bike that they rode is also untraceable till today. Government machinery and para military forces including those sent by the Central government have not spoken a single word in connection with the missing of the two teenagers.
Former MLA RK Anand, state secretary of the CPI Sotinkumar, retired session judge A Nouteshwari, MPCC vice president Hareshwar Goshwami, JCILPS convenor Phunindro Konsam, FOCS president Manihar, among others, opined the need for working together and unite for finding the two teenagers and to stop losing more students and teenagers during this crisis.
“We should work together and have ‘one voice’ under one agenda to protect our people”, RK Anand said while talking in the meeting organised by the JAC formed against the missing of the two students. He questioned how the two students were kidnapped on the way to Sekmai when there are so many para military forces and police personnel along the line.
“If the government of India cannot protect our children, then we need to re-look and re-examine the merger agreement between India and Manipur”, Anand said.
Retired Sessions Judge A Noutuneshwari, while expressing her views, opined the need to file a habeas corpus or a PIL to the Manipur High Court to make sure the state machineries, including law enforcers, speed up their duty to protect the citizens. The former session judge, while quoting a Supreme Court’s order dated August 8 said that protection of life and property of the citizen is a state subject and the state should ensure protection of life and property of all citizens of the state. However, till today the state administration has not taken up any measures to protect the life and properties of the citizens, she added.
“Internally displaced people still cannot return to their respective houses. On the contrary many houses were destroyed and flattened using bulldozers at Churachandpur district after the people had been displaced”, Nauteneshwari said.
The public meeting was moderated by Social and Cultural Activist Ningthoujam Lancha.
