IMPHAL July 4: “Save Sharmila Campaign”, a joint initiatives of the National Alliance of People’s Movement, Asha Parivar, Gandhi Global Family, Jagriti Mahila Samiti, Khudai Khidmatgar, Yuva Koshish, Mission Bharatiyam and Asian centre for Social studies, today affirmed their stand to intensify their nationwide campaign to press the central government for a viable solution to Sharmila’s demand.
A press conference was held at the premise of the Human Rights Alert, Manipur, in this connection.
Mohammad Tanveer Iqbal, journalist and human rights activist, during the press conference stated that the future road map for the nationwide campaign has been worked out to intensify the ‘save Sharmila campaign’.
He said that on September this year, a journey from Srinagar to Imphal with the objective to unite heart and soul of the nation has been instituted. He stated that the motive of the campaign is to create mass awareness of the 10 years non-violent struggle of Irom Chanu Sharmila throughout the whole country and also to demand the central government for immediate effective solutions.
A meeting will be organized in Doda, Jammu and Kashmir on July 24 in this relation to announce the Nation Committee of Signature campaign.
He added that the respective state co-coordinators will be given charge to conduct the nationwide signature campaign that is organized in the month of October starting from the October 2.
He elaborated that the signature campaign will be held in all major cities of the country.
In Tamil Nadu the proposed campaign will be held in Chennai, for Maharastra in Mumbai, likewise it will also be organized in Delhi, he added.
The campaign will also be held in all the states in their respective major cities. Further, he mentioned that on July 9, letters will be submitted to the Prime Minister, chairperson of the UPA and leaders of opposition in connection with the campaign.
More than 200 people coming from all walks of life, of all age groups and from various states took part in a candle light solidarity prayer organized at Rajghat, New Delhi on June 25 at 6 pm to support Irom Chanu Sharmila under the ‘Save Sharmila’ campaign, he added.
He further also disclosed that virtually through various social networking sites such as twitter, facebook, thousands of people turned up in support of the candle light vigil and save Sharmila campaign. Among them Taslima Nasreen, Pritish Nandy, Calamur, Nilim and Sudir Tailang sent support messages for the cause in Twitter, he added.
The region has been facing many problems on various issues ranging from foreign interference, threat of destroying natural resources and culture to lagging behind the rest of India in terms of development, lack of attention from national medias and mainland India which has only necessitated for such wide scale national campaign, he reasoned.
Accusing the central government for ignoring the non violent agitation of Irom Sharmila, he decried that the act of the government amounts to injustice to the people of Manipur which is against the democratic principles.
Further, during the conference, he demanded the government of India to initiate positive steps of talk, and to send an all party delegation and member of National women commission and National Human Rights Commission to meet Irom Sharmila, and has also demanded to send a special team of doctors from New Delhi to examine the health of Irom Sharmila.
