Imphal: A strike to protest human rights abuses by security forces greeted President A P J Kalam when he visited Manipur on Monday.
Shops, businesses and schools were closed in Imphal in protest against a law which gives sweeping powers to security forces to catch and kill suspected separatist rebels.
"Since the democratic voices of the people of Manipur are not honoured by the Government of India, so a visit by the leader of the country is to be protested," said a leader of Apunba Lup, a coalition of civil society groups, Dayananda.
The controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act provides almost unlimited powers to the security forces to shoot or arrest anybody without a warrant.
Human rights groups say it has given the army license to kill, torture and rape with impunity. "We demand repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and a complete stop to state terrorism," Dayananda said.
The Armed Forces Act was passed in 1958 and only applies in the northeastern region and Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Irom Sharmila, who has been on hunger strike for six years demanding the scrapping of the Act, was denied permission by police on Monday to leave a New Delhi hospital where she had been forcibly taken by authorities 10 days ago.
Sharmila, who has now become an iconic figure for the people of Manipur, began her fast in 2000 but was soon arrested and charged with attempted suicide.
She has since been force-fed by nasal tube in a government-run hospital in Imphal.
Sharmila, who started the hunger strike after soldiers shot dead 10 young men at a bus stop in a small Manipur town, says she will fast until the government repeals the Act.
She shifted her fight to the streets of central New Delhi on October 4 but was moved by police to a city hospital two days later.
"The doctors told us today that she could be discharged from the hospital but when we tried to leave, the police who have been guarding her stopped us," said director of a Manipuri human rights group who is accompanying Sharmila, Babloo Loitongham.
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