Call to protect whistle blowers : Kudos to rights defenders
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 11 2018 -
Human Rights Alert (HRA) Executive Director Babloo Loitongbam addressing a press meet held at Jupiter Yambem Centre :: Pix - TSE
There is something terribly wrong. Kill to get honoured. Kill to brighten one’s promotion line.
This is the allegation that has been put forth by noted human rights activist Babloo Loitongbam and it is significant to note that the latest claim of extrajudicial killings has come amid the stern directives of the Supreme Court to the CBI (SIT) to get down to the business of cracking down on all those who killed at will in the name of counter insurgency operations.
The alleged extra-judicial killings of three youths, Phijam Naobi Singh, Th Prem and RK Ronel way back in 2010 after they were allegedly picked up from a rented house in Dimapur is a case in point here and it is this which has been taken up by Human Rights Alert and documents of the said case have been forwarded to the SIT, constituted under instructions of the Supreme Court.
Not only this, it has also been alleged that a top PLA leader, G Jiteshwar Sharma alias Gypsy and another individual were also allegedly picked up by the security personnel on August 18, 2011 and killed behind the unit mess of the 3 Corps Intelligence Surveillance Unit (CISU) at Rangaphar, Dimapur.
Names of officials involved in the killing of the three youths and the top PLA leader have also been mentioned and it is here that the call of Babloo Loitongbam to protect whistle blowers becomes significant.
Remember Lt Colonel Dharamvir Singh, who pointed fingers at CISU in his affidavit submitted to the High Court of Manipur earlier this year.
The allegations are serious and should not be taken lightly for it all points towards a system, a system which allegedly silences all those who are deemed to be on the other side of the law, for some medals and citations.
After EEVFAM approached the Supreme Court with 1528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings, there has been a marked decrease in the number of ‘encounters’ in which armed persons are killed !
For those in the business of disseminating information to the people, it was not unusual to get reports of encounters, long after Imphal had gone to sleep, in which one or two armed men were killed.
One common line that ran through all these encounter stories went something like this…a police/army patrol team was fired upon and in the retaliatory firing so and so was killed and guns along with ammunition were impounded….
Such stories gradually declined after the Supreme Court took up the alleged extrajudicial killings.
And when one talks about alleged extrajudicial killings, who can forget the July 23, 2009 BT Road incident in which Th Rabina and Chungkham Sanjit were killed with Tehelka to come out with a series of damning sequence of photographs that showed Sanjit being accosted, pushed inside Maimu pharmacy on BT Road, only for his bullet riddled body to emerge later with the cops spinning yet another encounter story in which Sanjit was killed.
That it took Head Constable Th Herojit to go live on air and proclaim that it was him who shot Sanjit dead under instructions from his superior officer should tell the story of how extrajudicial killings had become institutionalised in the State.
It is here that people of Manipur need to acknowledge the works taken up by human rights activists and if at all there comes the time to doff one’s hat, it should be to the human rights defenders of Manipur.
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