"At least 500 more trucks, coming along the same route, have been halted in the Awangkhul area, about 70 km from Imphal, owing to security reasons. The vehicles will reach Imphal on Sunday," a police official said.
A large number of state police and paramilitary forces are keeping sharp vigil along the Awangkhul -Imphal stretch of NH 53 to ensure the trucks reach Imphal without any threats from the agitators.
The Sadar Hills District Demand Committee (SHDDC) has been imposing economic blockades on NH-39 (Imphal-Dimapur) and NH-53 since August 1 seeking conversion of the Kuki-dominated Sadar Hills into a full-fledged district by carving out three sub-divisions of Senapati.
On the other hand, the United Naga Council (UNC) has come down heavily on the state government's alleged attempt to bifurcate the Naga-dominated areas to create a new district and also called "total bandh" on all national highways passing through areas inhabited by the Nagas since August 21.
The blockade and the bandh have triggered an acute scarcity of essential commodities in the strife-torn state. Till Friday, the stock of petrol, diesel and LPG was very low and black-marketers sold petrol at Rs 140 a litre and charged Rs 1400 for a filled LPG cylinder.
Only 226 kilo litre of petrol and 846 kilo litre of diesel were left at IOC depot at Chingmeirong in Imphal, sources said, adding that petrol would last for three days and diesel nine days.
Besides petroleum products, the state is facing acute shortage of food items and household materials owing to the blockade by Kukis and the counter-blockade by Nagas.
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