Manipur businessmen protest militants' extortion demands - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Manipur businessman staged a sit-in protest recently against frequent extortion demands made by militants. They said that militant activities have severely affected trade and business in the state. Businessmen of Kakching Bazaar shut down their business establishments the after a banned outfit demanded an annual tax from them and threatened them. The monetary demands ranged from 1500 to 4000 rupees. “Militants are threatening us all the time. We can’t live in peace. We are hiding most of the time. All the shops have been shut down in protest. We are suffering immensely at their hands. Living a normal life is difficult for us,” said N.Landhoni, a local. Over 120 business establishments stopped functioning during the two-day shut down protest held by Kakching Bazar Business Welfare Organization. The market place wore a deserted look as shops and business centers, basically hotels remained closed. “Many militant organizations are troubling us with monetary demands. We are small-time businessmen. We earn just enough to make both ends meet. We don’t have extra money that we can give to them,” said Thokchom Bhudhi, a businessman. Different militant organisations have been making extortion demands and hampering normal life and developmental activities in the state. Earlier,around 40 chemist shops and medicine distributors had stopped functioning in the state against extortion demands of Rs. 10 lakhs by the Kangleipak Communist Party (military council) (KCP-MC) militant outfit. Militant outfits like KYKL, KCP-MC, PREPAK have also demanded 30 percent of the amount sanctioned under State Finance Commission and 12th Finance Commission from various gram Panchayat’s in the state. In yet another incident monetary demands led to stoppage of the construction work at the High Court complex Chingmeirong in Imphal. In the same month, militants damaged several towers of private telecom services like Tata Tele services and Airtel due to failure of the telecom service providers to meet their extortion demands. In December, two employees of Airtel were abducted by KCP-MC militant outfit for a ransom of one crore.