Full curfew reimposed in 5 valley districts of Manipur as preventive measure

Imphal: Full curfew has been clamped in all the five valley districts of Manipur as a preventive measure from Tuesday evening, officials said.

The cancellation of curfew relaxation hours in Bishnupur, Kakching, Thoubal, Imphal West and Imphal East comes in the wake of the call by the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI) and its women wing requesting people from all parts of the valley districts to remove an army barricade at Phougakchao Ikhai in Bishnupur district, a few kilometres away from Churachandpur, on Wednesday, officials said.

At present, there is curfew relaxation in all the five valley districts from 5 am to 6 pm daily.

In a hurriedly called press conference, government spokesperson and Information and Public Relations Minister Sapam Ranjan said, "The government appeals to COCOMI to withdraw the proposed plan to storm the army barricade at Phougakchao Ikhai near Torbung on September 6." Sapam also requested all "to support the security steps taken up by the government”.

Movement of persons belonging to essential services such as health, electricity, PHED, petrol pumps, schools/colleges, municipality, media, functioning of courts and flight passengers shall be exempted from the curfew, the officials said.

COCOMI media coordinator Somendro Thokchom said the committee had earlier urged the government and the authorities concerned to remove the barricade by August 30.

While urging people to storm the barricade, Thokchom said the state government should bear full responsibility if anything untoward happens.

Locals said because of the barricade at Phougakchao Ikhai, they were not able to visit their residences at Torbung, which they had vacated after violence broke out on May 3.