IMPHAL, August 30: Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators have been picked up and detained in judicial custody for 15 days on charges of disturbing public peace, legal sources said.
The two BJP MLAs Th Biswajeet of Thongju constituency and Kh Joykishan of Thangmeiband constituency were arrested following a team of BJP workers led by the duo tried to storm the Manipur Police Training Centre (MPTC) at Pangei near Imphal to stop the controversial fresh recruitment process of the Manipur police (male) constables 2013 batch numbering around 2000 around 8 in the morning, sources available here said.
Police also fired couple of tear gas and smoke bombs to disperse the crowd near the gate of the MPTC campus, about 7 km north of Imphal in the morning. Meanwhile, the two MLAs were allowed to enter the MPTC campus and taken to Imphal East district police headquarters where they were arrested under section 147/149/159/353 IPC after the MLAs reportedly refused to take legal help claiming that their demand is legitimate, sources said.
Later, the duo was detained in the judicial custody till September 13 after producing before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Imphal East, it added.
Earlier, another team of the party led by its state unit president K Bhabananda submitted a memorandum to the state Governor through its secretary demanding an independent inquiry into the said police constable recruitment process besides reviewing the government order to conduct the fresh recruitment process.
The state authority had recently cancelled the recruitment process of the male constables claiming “irregularities” in its selection process which evoked sharp reactions from the written test successful candidates. Demanding announcement of the result of their recruitment, they have been taking up various forms of agitation including shut downs in the state.
