M.C. Mary Kom and Jenny Lalremliana in Imphal on Sunday. Picture by Eastern Projections

Imphal, Dec. 23: When in the ring, they use their gloved fists to do all the talking. Today, they let their hearts speak.

Three champion boxers — Manipur’s M.C. Mary Kom and Laishram Sarita Devi and Mizoram’s Jenny R. Lalremliana — made a joint appeal for peace in the troubled Northeast. The three boxers, who had won a gold each at the IVth World Women’s Boxing Championship in New Delhi, appealed to the government to find a lasting solution to the problem of insurgency in the region.

Mary Kom, who had stopped training for one-and-a-half years because of the birth of her twin sons, told the media at the Langol Games Village that she would start regular training in January for the 5th World Women’s Boxing Championship.

She expressed gratitude to the Bangalore-based HM Company for a two-year sponsorship. She has already completed a year under the company’s sponsorship programme.

Mary Kom is an inspector in the Manipur police department.

Jenny R. Lalremliana, also a police officer — she is a deputy superintendent of police in Mizoram — said she wished that the northeastern states would work together for the development of sport.

She also wants the state governments to combat drugs, AIDS and militancy.

Jenny cited the death of Mary Kom’s father-in-law Reikhupthang Kamang Kom in an attack by assailants in Manipur’s Bishnupur district last year as an example of how violence had affected people in the region.

On boxing, she said the number of women boxers in Mizoram had increased and the trend must be encouraged with special schemes.

Sarita Devi, at present a police inspector, said she was looking forward to attending the national camp that would be held in Haryana before the world championship. The gold medallist urged people of the Northeast to support Mary, Jenny and herfor the next world championship, too.

Sarita said the spurt of killings in Manipur was depressing. She also bemoaned the fact that the official quarters that chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh had promised her for winning gold at last year’s world championship was yet to be allotted.