PM arrives on Manipur visit

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] on Saturday arrived in Manipur on a two-day visit.

Singh, accompanied by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad, will lay the foundation stone at the border town of Jiribam, over 200 km west of Imphal, for a 97-km railway line to Tupul later in the day, before proceeding to the state capital, official sources said.

• Call to boycott PM visit  | 'Insurgency is the biggest business in the northeast'

Singh, who arrived in Jiribam by a special Indian Air Force helicopter from Silchar in Assam, was received by Governor S S Sidhu and Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh, they said. 

The police are on maximum alert in the wake of the call from separatist Revolutionary People's Front's for what it
described as '24-hour curfew' from Friday midnight as a mark of protest against Singh's visit.