Okram Ibobi Singh

Imphal, May 9: The organisation campaigning for change of script from Bengali to Meitei Mayek suspended its three-month-old violent agitation from today, holding out the hope that the issue would be settled across the table.

The Meitei Erol Eyek Loinasillon Apunba Lup, which has been spearheading the campaign for Meitei Mayek, suspended the agitation to pave the way for a meeting between chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh and representatives of the script-switch campaigners, which is scheduled for Wednesday.

The publicity secretary of the organisation, S. Jugeswar Meitei, said the organisation decided to suspend the agitation till Wednesday in view of the invitation extended by the government for holding talks over the issue. The organisation asked all the support groups to suspend the agitation temporarily.

Pro-script activists burnt down the state?s oldest library and railway reservation counter, both located here, torched 15 trucks, several government office buildings and lakhs of Manipuri textbooks written in Bengali during the agitation which began on February 10.

With the suspension of the agitation, normal supply of essential commodities resumed today. The Meitei Erol Eyek Loinasillon Apunba Lup had imposed an indefinite economic blockade on the national and state highways last month.

Ibobi Singh sent the invitation through feelers to the president of the script organisation, Chingsubam Akaba, who is now detained under the National Security Act. The jailed script leaders accepted the invitation leading to the suspension of the agitation, an official source said.

Ibobi Singh?s move came after the banned Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) issued ?death threats? to ministers and MLAs. The outfit asked the legislators to resolve the script issue or face the ire of the outfit. The Meitei Erol Eyek Loinasillon Apunba Lup also set yesterday as the deadline for the state government to come up with a solution. The organisation set the fresh deadline after the Ibobi Singh cabinet failed to taking a decision last week on how to start replacing the Bengali script.

The chief minister said the cabinet could not take any hasty decision on the matter, as it was a very sensitive issue. He said tribal students were against the imposition of Meitei Mayek. The students have urged the government to protect their interests while introducing the script.

Ibobi Singh is yet to decide on meeting the jailed script leader. The source said the chief minister was willing to meet Akaba, but was having second thoughts because he was apprehensive that holding talks with a person detained under the National Security Act could be a bad precedent. Therefore, he is likely to meet a delegation of the script organisation sans the leader.

The chief minister is likely to offer the script delegation a formula worked out jointly by three government agencies ? school education department, the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur and state Council for Educational Research and Training ? for introducing the script in schools at the primary level.

The cabinet, after having a preliminary discussions on the issue, last week asked the three agencies to sit together and work out a formula acceptable to all the ethnic communities living in the state.