IMPHAL, August 13: Journalists in Manipur on Sunday ceased work and staged a rally in Imphal city to protest Saturday’s grenade attack at the residence of All Manipur Working Journalists Union president A Mobi Singh by suspected militants.
Police said the grenade hurled from outside the gate landed and exploded on the court yard of the house located at Thongju Part-II in Imphal East at about 8.15 pm. No one was injured as Mobi Singh was alone inside the house at that time.
Despite the threat the journalist community took out a rally from the Manipur Press Club in the city yesterday and continued till the official residence of state Home Minister Gaikhangam to submit a memorandum.
A delegation of the journalists also submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh.
The memorandum demanded an inquiry into the attack and to arrest the culprits. It also urged the Chief Minister and the Home Minister to create an environment where journalists could work freely and without any fear.
Ibobi Singh assured the delegation that those involved in the attack would be arrested in two days’ time.
He said police are already following leads and they could be arresting the culprits in two days.
Mobi Singh, who is also the editor of a vernacular daily Sanaleibak said the grenade exploded at a place where he frequently sat and worked on his laptop daily around the time the explosion took place indicating that his movements were monitored.
“It is an attack on all journalists, democracy and society. It is cowardly and senseless act of violence,” vice-president of the journalists union Witoubou Newmai said.
The attack came at a time when the Greater Imphal area is in high alert in view of the militant strike on Independence Day.
Police, editors and officer bearers of the journalists union suspected hands of an armed group behind the attack. The group had reportedly issued threats to some editors and the president of the journalists union for not publishing a statement issued by the group recently.
The president said the statement could not be published as it would violate the guidelines of the Press Council of India.
Sources in the journalist union said the group that issued threats to the editors and office bearers of the union also texted the AMWJU president not to take out any protest rally against the attack.
Mobi said that he was alone so inside the house and working in the kitchen. “My family members were out on some family business. Had they been present I could have worked at the courtyard and I could have been either hurt or killed,” Mobi Singh said.
The journalists held an emergency meeting at the Manipur Press Club on Sunday and condemned the attack. As the scribes on cease-work strike there was no publication on Monday.