Owners of medicine stores hold a sit-in. Teleraph picture

Imphal, Aug. 5: A hand grenade planted by a militant group to threaten medicine shop owners was found by a group of children in front of a drug store near Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences at Porompat in Imphal East district early this morning.

Police said some children in the age group seven to eight who were going for tuition spotted the grenade and reported the matter to some passers-by who informed police.

The grenade was found in front of a medicine store named His Grace on the northern gate of the medical institute at 5.30am.

Owners of medicine stores said the grenade was left there to terrorise them for not paying monetary demands.

Three months back, the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (Red Army) served a “demand letter” signed by Nongshaba, a self-styled commander of the outfit in Imphal East district, to medicine stores in the area and the deadline was August 7.

The medicine store owners said a threat note from the same group was also found along with the grenade.

According to them, the group has been demanding Rs 1 lakh each from the wholesalers and Rs 20,000 each from those having retail stores.

Sixty wholesalers and retailers keep medicines ready for patients brought to the medical institute.

The owners of the medicine stores downed shutters today as a mark of protest and staged a sit-in at the northern gate of the institute.

Parents were worried over the development. The area is thickly populated.

“Had the children picked up the bomb unknowingly it could have exploded and the children could have died,” a resident of the area said.

The medicine sellers expressed surprise that the grenade was planted despite frequent police patrol as the office of the superintendent of police of Imphal East and a police commando complex were very close to the small marketplace.

“They left the grenade to threaten us as we could not meet the demand. We are caught between the devil and the deep sea. If we pay any underground (militant) organisation, the police will arrest us and if we don’t pay, we run the risk of being killed,” a medicine store owner said.

In the past, some of them were arrested twice by the police after they paid the militants.

“Our appeal to all armed groups is not to demand money from us as we are poor people trying to make a living and also serving the patients. We also urge the group to withdraw the demand,” another store owner said.

The store owners have an association, but it is now defunct after several outfits mounted pressure for money.