More student activists nabbed, KSU threatens more agitations

Shillong, Jun 22 (UNI) The Meghalaya government has booked two more Khasi Student's Union (KSU) activists under Meghalaya Preventive Detention Act (MPDA) even as the state police arrested three more students early this morning.

The total number of arrested KSU members has increased to 16, while the student's member booked under the MPDA increased to seven with KSU Nongstoin unit president Shemphang Syiem and the unit's publicity secretary Fullmoon Wahlang being booked under the same Act.

''We have booked them under MPDA for disrupting public movement and involvement in arson,'' West Khasi Hills Deputy Commissioner Freeman Kharlyngdoh told UNI here over the phone from Nongstoin in West Khasi Hills district.

Mr Kharlyngdoh said the duo have been shifted to Williamnagar District Jail.

Meanwhile, police arrested three more KSU leaders from different parts of the city, as they continued on their crackdown of KSU's hide-outs in the state.

''They (KSU) have broken the law and now they will be dealt as per the law,'' a senior police official said.

Senior KSU leaders, including their top leaders Samuel Jyrwa and Hamlet Dohling, have been on the run since the KSU announced their agitational programme in protest against the recent public hearing on Uranium mining.

''We will continue to agitate in order to force the government unconditionally release all our arrested members,'' KSU leader Mebanker Lapang said.

He said the five KSU activists, now in Tura district jail, had resorted to indefinite hunger strike and the 11 arrested members would also go on hunger strike to protest their ''illegal detention''.

Meanwhile, the Garo Student's Union has extended its solidarity on the KSU stand on the uranium mining issue and demanded the immediate release of KSU activists booked under MPDA.

The five-night road blockade, which entered its fourth day today, demanding the release of jailed KSU leaders has affected the National Highways- 40 and 44, the life lines of Mizoram, Tripura, Barak Valley of Asom and parts of Manipur and the night life here.

UNI