Imphal: People in Manipur will have to go for a month without newspapers and news magazines beginning from today as the sole agent in the state has been forced to shut down shop by the Kangleipak Students' Association (KSA).
Found stocking, displaying and selling copies of the Manipur General Knowledge written by R. Gupta and published by Ramesh Publishing House, New Delhi, M/S P.C. Jain and Co. will not be allowed to print newspapers for thirty days as a "form of punishment" by the KSA.
The KSA activists have put a ban on the book.
In a raid in the two shops - M/s PC. Jain and Co. and its sister concern, M/s Jain Book Store - the KSA activists on Saturday found several copies of the controversial book. The KSA activists took out these copies to the street and made a bonfire of them.
Some KSA activists said, "The distorted book is fraught with factual mistakes and hurts the religious sentiment of the people. Lai Haraoba is original religion of the Manipuris. However, the book says that it is the dance of Shiva and Durga along with other gods and goddesses."
The KSA also took a strong objection to the longest serving former Chief Minister and parliament member Rishang Keishing being described in the book as a "freedom fighter". Keishing was not a freedom fighter but a politician, the association insisted.
Meanwhile, the publisher has reportedly issued an apology for the "inadvertent mistakes" contained in the book.
In the past, the KSA and the Manipur Students' Federation had banned some books for alleged misrepresentation of Manipur. One of the books was on the history of Manipur, which said Arjun, the great archer among Pandavas from the epic Mahabharata, came to the northeast and married a Manipuri princess. This was an unfounded story, the KSA said.
