Kohima, Nov. 21: Naga students in Manipur today blocked workshops meant to familiarise schoolteachers in the hill districts with the Meitei Mayek script, which is to be introduced from the next academic session.

Activists of the All Naga Students? Association of Manipur prevented training programmes from getting under way in schools across Chingai, Ukhrul, Tadubi, None, Tamenglong and Chandel. However, the student organisation hinted it was doing a rethink on the blockade planned earlier.

The organisation, which had choked Manipur?s lifelines for 52 days from June 19, said it cared about ?human rights? and would not inconvenience residents again.

Various units of the Naga Students? Federation (NSF) are believed to be drawing up plans to continue the campaign against the introduction of Meitei Mayek, which is the original Manipuri script, in the hill districts. The NSF is the apex student organisation of Nagaland, but has been actively involved in the Naga agitation in the adjoining state.

The NSF came into the picture midway through the economic blockade by the All Naga Students? Association of Manipur, which was then protesting the Okram Ibobi Singh government?s decision to observe the anniversary of the June 2001 uprising in the valley as State Integrity Day. The uprising was against Del-hi?s attempt to extend its truce with the NSCN (I-M) to all Naga-inhabited areas, including parts of Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

NSF vice-president Elu Ndang said a second economic blockade had been planned as part of the new Naga non-cooperation movement against the introduction of Meitei Mayek, but circumstances necessitated a rethink. ?We are being careful because it may be seen as a human rights violation,? he said.

Other programmes on the protest calendar continued in Senapati and elsewhere in the Naga-dominated hill districts.

In some places, Naga students uprooted signboards rewritten in the Meitei Mayek script. ?The government is forcing painters to write in the Meitei script and we are not allowing it to happen,? said student leader Paul Langhu.

Activists also barred vehicle owners from using the script on number plates.

The Ibobi Singh government decided to replace the Bengali script with Meitei Mayek in April. The announcement was hastened by an intense campaign in the valley, led by an organisation called the Meitei Erol Eyek Loinasillon Apunba Lup.

Meitei script activists torched the state?s oldest library and railway reservation counter, both in Imphal, during the agitation.