IMPHAL: A day after chief minister N Biren Singh visited the trouble-hit National Institute of Technology (NIT), Manipur and assured the students of their safety and security, normal classes resumed at the campus on Thursday. As demanded by the agitated non-local students, CRPF personnel have been deployed at the institute located at the foothills of Langol in Imphal West district.On Wednesday, around 120 agitating non-local students of the institute, mostly from Bihar, had left their hostels to go back to their respective states until they were brought back by the police from Sekmai which is about 15 km from Imphal city.Trouble had begun in the central institute after a scuffle broke out during a football match between students of the institute and the locals inside the campus on Sunday. The following day, another huge altercation took place during which the police had to intervene to calm down the situation." Normalcy has returned to our institute today. Some classes have resumed and a calm atmosphere prevails here. We have seen some CRPF personnel guarding the institute and feel safe now," a non-local student told TOI.After the altercation, the non-local students had asked for the deployment of the CRPF in place of the state police in the campus and the resignation of the institute's registrar. Asking for immediate action be taken against the state police personnel who had allegedly beaten them up, the students also threatened to vacate the institute on Wednesday if their demands were not met.Their list of demands also included opening a permanent medical unit inside the campus and the development of the academic infrastructure with proper classrooms, fully-equipped laboratories, the appointment of more professors and the provision of single or double-bedded rooms in the hostels for third and fourth year students of the institute.The row at NIT Manipur had snowballed into a major issue with the Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar calling his Manipur counterpart Biren Singh and requesting him to personally look into the safety and security of the non-local students. Biren then met with the students in the campus and patiently listened to their grievances. The Manipur CM , who also holds the home minister's portfolio, gave the students his personal mobile phone numbers and asked them to contact him directly if they have any problem.The CM instructed the NIT authorities to attend to the students' demands and inform his government about any problem on time in the future. He also appealed to the local people to show humanity and kindness to all the outsiders coming to the state to ensure that they feel at home.

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