A live grenade lying at the entrance to a women’s college in Manipur‘s capital city of Imphal, barely 100m from Raj Bhavan, sparked panic and protests by students on Monday amid growing insecurity over extortion threats received by several educational institutes in the state and a profusion of bomb hoaxes targeting airlines and hotels elsewhere.
GP Women’s College, also a short walk from CM’s residence, was aflutter with conspiracy theories by the time a bomb squad arrived to defuse the grenade. A note with a cryptic message added to the confusion. “Down with the fascist education system; honour the rights of proletarian students’ free education movement,” an official quoted it as saying.