The residents of Kombirei Girls Hostel No. 2 are still shaken from the events of the night of September 20, when the Manipur police raided the boys’ hostels searching for 17 students and teachers—named as accused in an FIR.  While the girls’ hostels were spared from the midnight operation, they were panic messages floating around the student Whatsapp groups, of police using brute force to arrest students. Some of the boys came over to the girls’ hostel asking for help. The next day, the government imposed a five-day state-wide ban on mobile Internet.

“We heard them banging our gates and the sound of smoke bombs and tear gas shells. We were reluctant to go out but the boys were calling out to us saying they needed help,” said Sapam Panthoi Chanu, a fourth-semester student pursuing her MA in English and Cultural Studies at Manipur University who stays at Hostel No. 2. Police personnel chased them away but the security guard brought one of the boys inside after they saw he was badly injured. Panthoi said, “The deployment of massive police and paramilitary forces—the scenario has totally changed in the campus.”

Panthoi is among a handful of girls in her hostel who have been on a hunger strike since the morning of September 24, along with a few residents of the five girls’ hostels. It’s hard to estimate the exact number of girls on hunger strike since the numbers have been dwindling from day two when at least six girls were hospitalised because of health issues. The students are demanding that six teachers and seven students in judicial custody be released and the removal of heavy police personnel stationed in the campus.

Crackdown on campus

Trouble began at the Manipur University campus when students and teachers went on an 85-day long agitation against vice-chancellor Adya Prasad Pandey. Pandey was suspended by the HRD Ministry on September 16 while an inquiry was set up to investigate allegations of misadministration and allocation of funds.

On the evening of September 20, the newly appointed pro-vice-chancellor Y Yugindro filed an FIR against 17 persons under charges of wrongful confinement, attempt to murder and intimidation. As per his complaint, members of the Manipur University Students Union (MUSU) and Manipur University Teachers Association (MUTA) manhandled and detained him and registrar M Shyamkesho Singh when they went to take charge of the office.

Calling the charges baseless, Panthoi felt the force used on the students and teachers was disproportionate. She said, “We are all students, not terrorists.” Yugindro’s complaint registered at the Keisampat police station tails off at the end, requesting legal action to be taken against “terrorist-like Professors and students who strongly conspired me forcibly from my designated position of Vice-Chancellor i/c of Manipur University”.

Between September 20 and 21, many students were staying up late studying for their second-semester examinations which had been postponed since June.

A senior police official from the Imphal West jurisdiction told Newslaundry the instruction for prompt action against the accused came from the top. When asked if the midnight crackdown along with security forces against students in a campus may be seen as excessive, he argued that the arrests would not have been possible during the day. “Even then, the students got information that we were coming to arrest them. In fact, they even assaulted us,” he said, claiming the police had never once stepped inside the campus during the 85-day impasse.

At least 90 students were indiscriminately picked up by the police on the early morning of September 21 were and released from police custody only the next day. Meanwhile, residents of International Ladies Hostel No. 3 told Newslaundry the police conducted an unwarranted search raid in their hostel on September 21. “They searched our rooms and male cops even loitered around on our lawns. This was a huge invasion of our privacy,” said a hosteller, who did not want to be named. The next day, girls from all five hostels decided in a joint meeting to go on a hunger strike to press their demands. Ridiculously, the police official denied that male cops entered the hostel saying they must have mistaken some “women with boy cut” as men.

The hosteller said, “We couldn’t just sit and do nothing about it. They were our friends who were so brutally violated.”

Each hostel has an average occupancy of 100-150 girls, but only about  15-20 per cent of the residents volunteered to go on a hunger strike. A medical team dispatched from the Secretariat has been monitoring the health of the students round the clock but the hostellers exhibit little respect or trust to government officials or the police. A handwritten A4-sized poster pasted on one of the benches reads, “Only press/media allowed inside”.

Protestors go underground

In contrast, the boys’ hostels wore a deserted look in the days following the police crackdown. Most residents have left the premises, fearing another wave of arrests in the heavy presence of the Manipur police, Manipur Rifles and Indian Reserve Battalion personnel stationed outside the hostels. Human rights group Amnesty International India has called the midnight arrests and subsequent detention “outright harassment”.

One of the hostellers who left the hostel a day after the raid described the university campus as a “war zone”. Speaking to Newslaundry over the phone, he said, “I somehow escaped detention that day and took the Manipur University ambulance to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences hospital. When I returned to my hostel room, a cop came and took down my details. That’s when I called my parents to take me home.” He asked that his identity not be disclosed.

The warden of one of the hostels, who did not want to be named, told Newslaundry barely 50 out of 165 occupants were left in the hostel. “We heard that some of them might join the agitation outside but we can’t say for sure.” Most of the boys that continue to remain at the hostels belong to hill tribal communities and have not been involved in the protests. In fact, student bodies from different tribes opposed the agitation, alleging that Pandey had been fair to them on account of reservations for teachers and students.

A Naga hosteller from Senapati who did not wish to be named said he was detained in police custody that night and returned to the hostel the next day at 7 pm. He said, “I don’t really care about who is the VC. Moreover, we were told by All Tribal Students Union of Manipur (ATSUM) not to participate in the protests.”

A two-day curfew on September 27 and 28 was called by five civil society organisations. While it was mostly observed by the public, the police reportedly tried to force open shops in the keithels (local market). Meanwhile, the police also picked up four professors and a journalist from All India Radio, Manipur, for reasons that aren’t clear. A senior police official told Newslaundry they were picked up for questioning about their alleged involvement in organising the bandh.

Fearing arrest, most of the student leaders and professors involved in the protest have gone underground. When Newslaundry finally spoke to MUSU president Mayanglambam Dayaman over the phone, he said the condition is only going to become worse if the government doesn’t release the detained students and professors. “Students themselves have declared that they will not appear for the exams. We have the public support.”

While they were not against the appointment of Yugindro, Dayaman said they do not agree with his mode of appointment, and have suspicions that Pandey was behind it while he was on leave. He said, “Taking charge of office without the approval of the executive council, he has violated the Manipur University Act, 2005.” However, his appointment along with the registrars came directly on a signed human resources development ministry order.

Given that the university is a think tank for the entire state, Dayaman said that it would not be suitable for someone from a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh background [Pandey] to hold the VC portfolio. “Even if someone like that is appointed but does his job well, then we won’t have any issues,” he added.

Is the old hand of the Congress still alive?

The continuing university crisis is the longest instability Manipur has seen since last year when the Bhartiya Janata Party formed the government for the first time in alliance with regional parties. Since Chief Minister Biren Singh, a former Congress minister in the last government, took over, much of his focus has been devoted towards development through entrepreneurship and tourism, bridging the hill-valley divide and maintaining “normalcy” in the state. However, the Manipur University crisis has given the Congress opposition the perfect opportunity to lambast him for running a pet government from the Centre.

Congress leader and Thangmeiband MLA Khumukcham Joykisan said the opposition raised the matter of the university agitation in the last monsoon session but to no avail. He told Newslaundry, “We asked the House to send an appeal to be sent to the visitor (the President of India), the HRD minister and the Prime Minister. But the CM rejected [this] saying this was not an issue and he would handle it calmly.”

Blaming the BJP government at the Centre for the crisis, Joykishan said his former colleague seems to be remote-controlled by the Centre. “They know what they’re doing is wrong but they cannot say anything. His wings appear to be clipped.”

Kim Haokip, secretary of the All India Mahila Congress, also criticized the “heavy hand” of the BJP government. “Biren is a Manipuri who also studied here. How could he do this to his own children? How could he carry out an operation in the middle of the night as if they were dealing with insurgents?” she said. Earlier this week, Haokip attended a protest rally in Delhi University organised by teachers and students from the state.

The BJP leaders have in turn accused the Congress of instigating the agitation from day one. “The former deputy chief minister Gaikhangam Gangmei (ex-Congress state president) formed a fact-finding team in Manipur University and concluded that the allegations against Pandey were correct,” an old party veteran told Newslaundry on the condition of anonymity. He denied that the government was protecting Pandey but admitted Pandey could have been less arrogant. He said, “The excessive security detail accompanying him was unnecessarily intimidating for students. And he never learned how to speak Manipuri. For that matter, he refused to even speak English. Javadekar even reprimanded him saying that his Benarasi Hindi will not work in Manipur.”

He asserted that the chief minister had done everything in his capacity to solve the crisis to a point that “the government became a laughing stock in the HRD ministry”. The harassment of the pro-vice-chancellor and the registrar, he said, became the final straw. “The students crossed the limit.”