Guwahati, Apr 26 : As a token of solidarity to Manipur's Irom Sharmila, who has been on a decade-long hunger strike against the AFSPA, students and youths in Northeastern states today staged various demonstrations.
With a debate simmering in the region over the government’s alleged indifference towards Sharmila’s peaceful protest in contrast to the Centre’s fast reaction to veteran Gandhian Anna Hazare’s indefinite fast, the North East Students Organisation (NESO) today organized protests in all the seven NE states.
A sit-in demonstration was held in Assam’s main city Guwahati where NESO activists participated with black clothes covering their mouths.
''The very freedom of expression has been stifled in Irom Sharmila’s case. She is in judicial custody for trying to ventilate people’s demands,'' NESO chairman Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharyya said.
Pointing that the NESO has extended its complete support to Hazare’s movement against corruption, Bhattacharyya said there was ‘resentment’ in NE over the government’s ‘apathy’ towards a similar, democratic movement that has been continuing for more than 10 years.
Sharmila, dubbed Manipur’s ‘Iron Lady’, has been on indefinite hunger strike for the past decade demanding repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), which gives sweeping powers to security agencies in counter-insurgency operations. Sharmila is in judicial custody and forcibly nose-fed.
The NESO chairman said the people of the region were appalled at the apparent lack of sincerity on part of the government to address the concerns raised by Sharmila.
As part of the protests, candle-lit vigils were taken out in all state capitals of the region in the evening.
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