Richard Loitam's case: The twists and turns
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: June 14 2012 -

Justice for Loitam Richard : Protest at various places in Imphal on 7 May 2012 :: Pix - Bunti Phurailatpam

With each passing day, the case of Richard Loitam, a second semester student of Acharya NRV School of Architecture at Soladevanahalli in Bangalore North, who was found dead in his hostel room on April 18 after a fight with some hostel mates over switching the TV channel while watching an IPL match the previous night, is becoming more intriguing.

First, Karnataka police registered a case of mysterious death based on the complaint lodged by the hostel supervisor Sudhakar.

Later on, Sudhakar filed a fresh complaint, on whose basis the Karnataka police registered a murder case against the two students, namel, Syed Afzal Ali and Vishal Banerjee, who were involved in a fight with Loitam in the hostel on the night of April 17 'over a damaged scooty'.

The two accused students have been reportedly booked for murder, but they have not been arrested yet.. The authority of Acharya Institute also did their level best, at first, to defame Richard as a drug addict and later changed its statement after no traces of drugs were found in his blood during post-mortem.

Moreover, the initial post-mortem report showed that Richard suffered multiple cuts and bruises on his face, head, back, hands and thighs, thus collaborating with the tale tell photograph of lifeless Richard with severe bleeding from nose, mouth and head.

Yet, the secondary post-mortem report contended that Richard died due to a cardiac arrest. In between, there have been reports in mainstream media trying to insinuate that Richard's death was a result of an accident he met two days earlier.

Amid all these twists and turns, a bombshell seems to have been dropped when representatives of six student bodies of Manipur fighting for the cause of Richard Loitam, returned from meeting the Chief Minister of Karnataka and conveyed that the Government of Manipur had never approached the Karnataka Government over the issue.

On the contrary, it was the Chief Minister of Karnataka himself who assured his Manipur counterpart of taking up every possible step to bring justice to Richard Loitam.

Before coming to any conclusion over this confusion, we may recall the reported meeting between the Chief Ministers of the two States on the sidelines of the National Counter Terrorism Centre meeting at New Delhi on May 6 wherein Chief Minister O Ibobi urged his Karnataka counterpart to bring Richard's killers to justice.

Prior to that, the Government of Manipur deputed SP (Central Motor Transport) Potsangbam Dhanakumar to Bangalore on May 5 to liaise with Bangalore police investigating into the case.

If the meeting between the two Chief Ministers and deputation of a high ranking police officer to aid in the investigation are not formal enough, what the Karnataka Chief Minister is hinting at?

The Government of Manipur should come out with a clarification and make its stand clear over a just course which has pricked the consciousness of people all across the nation.

Almost two months have passed, but the demand for justice over the death of Richard still hangs in uncertainty. This should be a serious cause of concern for all of us.

We just hope that the merit of the case is not lost in the labyrinth of modern King Minos, whose numbers are never wanting.