MUTA sets pre-conditions for talks on Manipur University

IMPHAL: The Manipur University Teachers Association (MUTA) has said that they will sit for talks to end a monthlong agitation only after their demands, including “unconditional release” of 15 teachers and students, are met.

The students and teachers of the Manipur University were arrested on September 21.

A team of officers had raided the university hostel and the residential quarters and took the students and the teachers into custody based on a complaint filed by newly appointed Acting Vice Chancellor K Yugindro Singh.

MUTA also demanded withdrawal of the FIR lodged by Yugindro Singh and removal of all security forces from the university campus as a pre-condition for talks, it said in a statement Saturday night.

The teachers' body strongly condemned the action of security forces on September 21, but welcomed any move by an individual or organisation keen on bringing an end to the crisis which began from May 30 after Manipur University Students Union (MUSU) launched agitation for removal of now suspended Vice-chancellor Prof A P Pandey.

The MUTA statement followed the Friday letter of Chief Minister N Biren Singh to the university community asking them to sit for talks to bring about an amicable solution.

Police on Saturday arrested one person, believed to be a cadre of a political party, for his alleged involvement in throwing eggs on the pictures of the PM, CM and Prof Pandey pasted on a wall of a building in Imphal, a purported video of which has been circulating on social media.