Imphal observed naked protest by school children

“We don't want to be separated from our mothers", "We want pens, not guns” are the pathetic call with which the naked children carried out protest on Monday against the augmenting child abductions by a group of militants in Manipur.

A group of nearly 20 boys between four and eight years of age stripped and marched on the streets to protest against the forcible induction of child soldiers.

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These small kids’ naked protest were vehemently supported by a number of students-in-uniform who marched along with these to express their disgust at the latest trend of militant groups abducting children to augment their strength.

The naked protest by kids was a reminiscence of the naked protest by a group of elderly women in Imphal in 2004 who had carried out the protest in a similar fashion against the custodial death of 24-year-old girl Manorama Devi.

Increasing number of abductions of minors had kept the State police on their toes. Meanwhile, the Manipur police claimed to have nabbed seven militants involved in the abductions affair.

All the seven militants belong to different insurgent groups. The sources from the Army headquarters said that four of them are related to UNLF, two others come from PREPAK (GS) and one militant is yet to be identified.

The Army said that security will be tightened more and relentless operations will be in force so as not to provide militants a free hand.

The Director-General of Police, Yumnam Joykumar Singh named the Peoples Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK V-C) and PREPAK (GS) behind such callous act of abducting as they did not find older ones.

About 20 children from 11 to 16 year-old have been reportedly abducted or missing since May 1 mostly from the vicinity of state capital Imphal.

Defying militants’ threat, various women organisations, schools, NGOs, and individual mothers have constantly been holding demonstrations and sit-ins for the past couple of weeks.

Army has also praised citizens for showing their courage, coming out openly despite militants’ threat and have been providing even a minute of information related to militants’ movement.