Imphal: Amid tight security, hundreds of people, mostly women from different communities, paid floral tributes at the memorial stones and statues of the known and unknown martyrs at Cheiraoching, a hill lock, near the Manipur Legislative Assembly on Sunday.
Dressed in the traditional Manipuri mourning attire, the visitors also offered flowers at the memorial sites of Manipur Martyrs Thangal General, Paona Brajabashi, Bir Tikendarjit, and Hijam Irabot.
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The memorial is also dedicated to the proscribed Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF), the political wing of the banned People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and also many unknown soldiers who had laid down their lives for the motherland.
With an order from the authority concerned, the visitors were allowed to offer tributes at the sites from 6 am to 5 pm. The event marked that many underground outfits, including PLA/RPF, also paid respects to other cadres of the groups who laid down their lives in the liberation movements.
The main event was observed in honor of the 16 PLA men killed in the encounters at the villages of Kadampokpi in Imphal West district on April 13, 1982, and Tekcham in Thoubal district on June 16, 1981.
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The RPF/PLA has been fighting for the restoration of Manipur’s lost sovereignty. Manipur merged with the Indian Union in 1949 after gaining independence from the British. The princely state of Manipur was under British rule from 1891 to 1947.