Ensure safety of people from northeast, NESO asks president PM

The North East Students Organisation (NESO) Friday demanded intervention of President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure security to the people of the northeastern region residing in different parts of the country.

In a separate memorandum submitted to Mukherjee and Manmohan Singh, thorough the governors of seven northeastern states, the NESO - an apex body of various students' unions - asked the central government to take immediate and effective measures for "mental, physical and social security" of the people from the region.

"Incidents of assaults, molestations on NE students and people are happening on a frequent basis resulting in the feeling of insecurity especially to the women despite the prime minister's directive to the concerned authorities to take stern action against the culprits and to take special measures for the physical security of the northeastern students," said NESO chairman Samuel Jyrwa.

Such attacks have been amplified recently by the assault on two women belonging to the Thangkhul Naga community, rape of one minor girl from Manipur, and physical assault of two Manipuri boys in New Delhi just a few days after the murder of the student from Arunachal Pradesh.

"We demand proper and swift high level enquiry of the ongoing incidents and to give exemplary punishments to the criminals associated," Jyrwa said.