Irom Sharmila
Imphal, July 26 : Manipur today began the 100-day countdown to the completion of a decade-long fast by Irom Sharmila with a call for a united struggle against the “draconian law” at a function at Manipur Press Club here.
The Just Peace Foundation, a rights group supporting Sharmila’s cause, organised the function.
Sharmila will complete 10 years of her fast against the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, on November 1.
The crusade began after the Assam Rifles killed 10 civilians at Malom near Imphal airport on November 2, 2000.
Irom Singhajit, the managing trustee of Just Peace Foundation and Sharmila’s brother, said a number of programmes would be launched during the countdown. “Poster campaigns, street corner meetings, symposiums, kavi sammelan and human chains will be organised,” he said.
It will culminate in a programme called Festival of Hope, Justice and Peace from November 2 to 6 in Imphal. Musical concerts, shumang leela and other programmes focusing on the theme Sharmila and the act will be performed.
“The act has made Manipur a fertile ground for militants to recruit cadres as discontentment is growing over increasing rights violations by government forces. This act should go,” Prim Vaiphei, the president of the All-Manipur Christian Organisation, said at the countdown function.
Rights activist Aram Pamei said the people of Manipur should stand together against the act.
Filmmaker Aribam Syam Sharma addressed the function and said the 24 lakh people of the state should hold a hunger strike, preferably on Sharmila’s birthday. The executive director of Human Rights Alert, Babloo Loitnongbam, said Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission would also observe the countdown. A three-member team of the Human Rights Alert will leave Imphal tomorrow to mobilise support for Sharmila from rights groups in the region.
Sharmila is now surviving on forced nasal feeding at Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital. A resident of Kongpal Kongkham Leikai of Imphal East, she was only 28 when she began her agitation.