Shillong, Aug. 8: Anticipating another bout of frenzy over management of school education in Meghalaya, the D.D. Lapang government today clamped indefinite curfew in the northern part of Shillong.

The harried government requisitioned five more companies of the CRPF ? seven were deployed earlier ? as the 20 NGOs campaigning for the reconstitution of the Meghalaya Board of School Education indicated they would step up the tempo of their agitation.

A night bus was pelted with stones at Mawlai, damaging its windshield and injuring several passengers, soon after the indefinite curfew took effect at 6 pm. The areas under curfew include Mawlai, Jaiaw, and Upper and Lower Mawprem.

Protesters also torched a block development office at Mawsynram.

East Khasi Hills deputy commissioner D.P. Wahlang told the media that he would review the situation tomorrow and decide whether curfew should be extended to other parts of Shillong. “We do not rule out violence in other parts of Shillong, and the army has been kept on standby,” he said.

Justifying the move, Wahlang said the administration had reason to apprehend a breakdown of law and order if the agitation continued the way it has. He cited mob attacks on government vehicles, including the torching of an ambulance on Saturday night, as instances of protesters going berserk.

The Khasi Students’ Union has been enforcing a dusk-to-dawn “public curfew” since Thursday. The Seng Longkmie (mothers’ union) and the Seng Kynthei, another women’s organisation, announced a similar agitation for two days from tomorrow to protest police action against their activists.

Members of the two organisations had gone to the chief minister’s office, only to be stopped by security personnel with water cannons and teargas.

Lapang today convened a cabinet meeting to take stock of the situation, which took a turn for the worse after talks with the KSU ended in a deadlock and two of its leaders were arrested. Both were charged with arson and booked under the Meghalaya Preventive Detention Act.

Amid the gathering storm, members of the Shillong Press Club filed an FIR against the CRPF and took out a silent procession to protest an assault on a journalist by some security personnel. Their faces covered with black cloth, the journalists marched through the thoroughfares of the state capital and later met Lapang with a memorandum.

Marcus Lyngdoh, a cameraman with a local cable network, was picked up at Mawlai on Saturday.