Imphal, April 9: Manipur today sounded a red alert in view of a general strike called by a proscribed militant outfit in support of the demand for a script switch from Bengali to Meitei Mayek in textbooks.

The Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), one of the several rebel groups of Manipur, said it would call a weeklong general strike from tomorrow if the Okram Ibobi Singh government failed to come up with concrete steps to replace the Bengali script with the Meitei one.

The Ibobi Singh government has been silent on the script issue so far.

An official source said all police stations have been put on maximum alert.

All the district superintendents of police have been asked to step up frisking operations and deploy personnel in their respective areas to counter the strike.

The police stations have also been asked to treat all supporters of the strike as members of the banned outfit.

Senior police officials yesterday reviewed the prevailing law and order situation. The meeting also discussed strategies to counter the strike call.

The state government has already issued shoot-at-sight orders to deal with disruptive elements of the script agitation. The steps followed burning of several trucks and government offices by activists of the Meitei Erol Eyek Loinasillon Apunba Lup, the organisation that has been spearheading the script-switch agitation.

The organisation, as well as the Democratic Students Alliance, Manipur, which is also supporting the ongoing agitation, reacted strongly to the government?s shoot-at-sight orders against arsonists.

Criticising the state government for remaining indifferent to the demand for a script switch, they termed the decision to deal with the protesters harshly as ?anti-people.? The organisations are unfazed by the shoot-at-sight orders.

They said members of the organisations were ready to sacrifice their lives for implementation of the Meitei Mayek script.

On the other hand, the All Manipur United Clubs Organisation, another influential public organisation, has appealed to the KCP to withdraw its weeklong general strike taking into consideration the impact it would have on the common people.