Sorting through the paper trail of fake encounters in Manipur

Anoo Bhuyan *

12th Death Anniversary of Thangjam Manorama held at Bamon Kampu on July 11, 2016 :: Pix - Shankar Khangembam

What do 1,528 dead bodies look like? Three filing cabinets. In a dimly lit, dusty room in Manipur's capital, thousands of files sit, marked or unmarked, as members of the Extra-Judicial Execution Victim Families Association (EEVFAM) sort them into various categories. These files pertain to the victims of alleged extra-judicial killings and fake encounters in the state since 1979.

The Armed Forces (Assam and Manipur) Special Powers Act (AFSPA) was enacted in 1958. The Act has been controversial – Section 4(a), for example, empowers the armed forces to fire upon the public, "even to the causing of death"; Section 6 provides the government's security force immunity from prosecution. Nearly 60 years of AFSPA in Manipur has seen thousands of mostly young men killed for being suspected militants.

Based on the EEVFAM's submissions, a wide range of alleged fake encounter cases are before the Supreme Court this week. Some of them are from prominent and exceptional incidents, such as the 12 people (including five minors) who were killed in a firing at the Raj Bhavan in 2001 by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). But the bulk of them point more to the banality of violence in Manipur.

Laikhuram Boinao was killed while going to buy Cerelac for his baby in 2007, allegedly by the Imphal East Commandos. Abdul Karim went out to eat paan and was killed at the gate of his house in 2008, allegedly by a team of the Imphal East Police Commandos and 32 Assam Rifles. Seventy-five-year-old Waikhom Mani Devi, one of the oldest victims, was killed in her bed in 2011, allegedly by the 15 Assam Rifles. Wahengbam Nabachandra Singh was shot and killed inside his toilet in 2001, allegedly by the Border Security Force. Nearly no one and nowhere was safe for the people of Manipur.

In an order incredible for its times, the Supreme Court on July 8 last year said that "the use of excessive force or retaliatory force by the Manipur Police or the armed forces of the Union is not permissible." This was in response to a petition filed in 2012 by Human Rights Alert (HRA) and EEVFAM, asking for an investigation into allegations of fake encounters in Manipur.

"Each instance of an alleged extra-judicial killing of even such a person would have to be examined or thoroughly enquired into to ascertain and determine the facts," the court said. It came as a relief to the petitioners, who had been working on the issue for nearly 18 years, documenting thousands of cases of killings in Manipur alone.

This week, the Supreme Court is hearing the final arguments in what is already a landmark case. The case has the potential of invigorating justice and kicking off similar processes in other parts of India where AFSPA has also been enforced, including Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland. The government of India has stated in its affidavits that these documented cases are of legitimate encounters between security personnel and militants. The petitioners are asking for an independent probe into them all.

In July, the bench asked the petitioners to go back to Manipur and return with sharper evidence, organised in a manner which would make it easy for the court to parse through 1,528 cases and find a method to administer justice. This is the backstory of the paper trail that is being put together in order to bring justice to the 1,528 victims of alleged fake encounters.

Under the mango tree:

The mango tree stands tall and alone. The taller it grows, the longer Bahrul Islam's mother harbours her pain, because "this mango tree was planted where my son was buried 24 years ago," she says. Islam was killed in 1993, when he was 15 years old. This mango tree is the only one which has grown successfully in that grassy patch of graves. Islam's father was buried behind his son. The tree planted over his father's grave did not grow at all.

Their story goes like this: Islam was at home studying for an exam on the night of October 28, 1993. "He would sit if you told him to sit and stand if you told him to stand," his mother says. The family recounts that personnel from 7 Assam Rifles entered the house around 11 pm and asked for Islam's father. They had accosted some men further down the street and wanted Islam's father to translate for them. His father was not at home that night. So they grabbed the boy instead. The next morning, the family went to the camp of the Assam Rifles and asked if they could take Islam back home. "They said they will send him back in time for the exam. Later in the afternoon, we realised he was dead," his mother says.

In the last 24 years, the family hadn't pursued their case at any serious legal level. They heard a rumour that they had been assigned some compensation, but they never got the money. Until a district coordinator from EEVFAM visited their house, they did not think about pursuing the case. "We have been hearing that people are taking these kind of cases to court. We are hopeful that because of this some witnesses will come out. At the time in 1993, we were too intimidated and confused to do anything," says Shakila Begum, Islam's younger sister.

"I pray for Bahrul in my namaaz every day. Five times a day, I pray for his peace and protection." In her small, unelectrified room, Islam's mother suddenly says in English, "Only one". She wasn't talking about her only son. She was trying to say that she lives here alone.

The paperwork of justice:

Following the court's order in July last year, back in Kwakeithel, EEVFAM got down to work. Most members of the association are widows – their husbands have been killed in alleged fake encounters. Yet the women, day after day, listen to and document cases that may sound so similar to their own – of young men pulled out of their houses or arrested on the way to work. Of men who left home alive but often came back dead, riddled with bullets and in clothes they weren't wearing when they left, usually in military fatigues.

For the women at EEVFAM, this is their daily life – for each file, they fill up forms of victims' details, staple passport photos, attach postmortem reports with photos of dead bodies, paste stamps on affidavits, include anything else such as press clippings and file case after case, in chronological order, in the three large nondescript filing cabinets.

Right now, these are only slim files of papers. When the Supreme Court passes its final judgement, these files could transform into trapdoors leading to the rot of illegality carried out by security personnel, at least in the state of Manipur, under the immunity offered to the army by the AFSPA.

The bench of Madan B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit in July was specific about what they wanted from EEVFAM: "Present an accurate and faithful chart of cases in a simple tabular form". The court was essentially asking EEVFAM to condense their filing cabinet of documents into a single, neat Word document with tables. The court asked the petitioners to indicate, in each of the 1,528 cases, if there had been a judicial inquiry, a National Human Rights Council (NHRC) inquiry or a commission inquiry. The court wanted other columns that indicated the result of the inquiry and if there is an FIR, complaint or petition by the victim's family.

This was remarkable – the Supreme Court had asked a citizen's group to collect and submit information on 1,528 possible fake encounters, on the premise that law enforcement, investigation agencies and even the NHRC had all failed. Thus began the long and tedious paperwork that paves their road to justice.

The EEVFAM went further. Besides 35 cases that have had a commission of inquiry, 37 cases that have had a judicial or high court inquiry and 23 cases that have had an NHRC inquiry, they also submitted other documents in tabular form: 170 cases that only have a written complaint, 78 cases with only an oral complaint, 134 cases with eyewitnesses and 178 cases where the family claims there has been a fake encounter. The unforgettable case of the killing of Thangjam Manorama Devi in 2004 leads the others, as hers is the first entry in the first table of cases.

The court now has with it a shorter list of 655 cases, culled out of the initial long list of 1,528. This list does not even include hundreds of other cases EEVFAM has been gathering, cases that were not brought to their notice in time for their 2012 petition, but which have been emerging due to the movement and momentum that their ground work has caused.

But a case in which there is no police complaint and may only have one eyewitness or one oral complaint might be less likely to be pursued, due to the shortage of evidence. In many cases, this is of course the result of families being afraid to report killings or authorities refusing to file cases. But as one reads down the rows of cases, one can see the evidence getting slimmer and justice getting further away for those families.

The burden of surviving your children:

"Only one," says Thokcham Kiran's father. In this case, he was in fact referring to his only son. Kiran was having lunch at home on March 20, 2008, when police commandos entered his house and took him away. "My son was an MA first class. He never talked or did unnecessary things. I don't know why he was taken away and why he was killed," he says. The next day, neighbours saw reports on TV that Kiran had been killed. The young man was 31 years old and is survived by his wife and three children.

Kiran's father then makes a very serious allegation. Around that time, a Congress MLA managed to get him a meeting with a senior politician and a senior police officer. They were both sitting together when he met them. "They told me that the police had said my son is an insurgent. So that's why he was killed. I got very angry. We asked for proof – which party, what group did he belong to? They said they can't give us any," he says.

On the walls of his unlit house, old posters with motivational quotes are peeling off. One says, "IMPOSIBLE IS A WORD TO BE FOUND AT THE FOLISHMEN DICTIONARY" (sic). "Don't ask me why this is happening in Manipur. It is obvious. This happens because the government has ordered it. In Manipur, if you kill someone, you go one rank up."

In Sora village, Mohammed Nayinmuddin's father begins to cry in front of his children. Sitting on a low stool, dressed in a lungi, he cries with a shudder. His wife has been crying, but quietly, since he began talking about their little boy Nayimudin, who was 12 years old when he was killed. Photos from Nayimudin's postmortem fall out of an envelope. An aunt in the house quickly snatches them out of sight of Nayimudin's mother.