It's just unimaginable that police officers with a fascist streak in their psyche live amongst us in this 21st century long after the death of Hitler and Mussolini. The July 23 incident of bursting tear gas shells inside a room at the Lamphel Police Station where 151 anti-cease-fire extension protesters-mostly student members of the Students' Federation of India (SFI) Manipur State Council were detained, reminds us of the macabre incidents in the history of India such as the Black Hole Tragedy and the Jalianwalabagh massacre. The cruel act of police also evokes the bitterest memory of the Chahi taret khuntakpa (seven years devastation by the Burmese) in the history of Manipur, in which large numbers of Meiteis - men, women and children were slowly suffocated to death by burning sackfuls of chillies inside the houses which were locked up from outside so that none of the victims could escape.

Though these are all history now, it can't be said with conviction that such decisions were arrived at after proper enquiries and fair trials. The judgments were passed rather by mobs in order to appease their own thirst for revenge. We, the human beings, sometimes behave exactly to the contrary of what the Bible firmly tells us. "Thou shall not avenge." When angry and burning with the desire for revenge, man loses all senses and controls. Thus on the spur of the moment, the mobs, like packs of hungry wolves, rush, in with war-cries, and set afire people's home, lynch men and women, destroy other's properties. Such incidents are increasingly becoming routine in this small state of Manipur. In cases of flights resulting in the death of one or other or in cases of rape or stealing someone's property or even for selling country liquor, a mob suddenly decides to teach the alleged wrongdoer a lesson or two by razing his or her home to the ground and expelling the person and his/her family from the village or locality. Such acts will not contribute in any way to the advancement of the society, rather will retrograde it to the primitivity. It will do more harm in the long run than teaching the alleged wrong doers a lesson. Just for an individual's wrong-doing, it is not wise to punish the whole family including the innocent little children who, when grown up, would one day review the whole episode and feel pretty bad about the society. While we condemn the law-keepers of sometimes misusing the law, what difference will there be if the people who must abide by the law take the law into their own hands and render mob justice. What then will be the use of the courts? That will be the syndrome of anarchy and enemy of the modern civilization.

The act shows two simple things, a) the concerned authority - police officer in charge and the judicial officer who reportedly came and talked with the group leaders - were inefficient, failed in their duties, and did not have imaginations to deal with such situations, and b) their decision was inhuman - plain and simple. How can responsible police officers adopt such shortcut and barbaric method to chase away people out of their custody simply because they did not agree to be transported back home in the police vehicles? If the police were going to do such a thing, why did they arrest the protesters in the first place? After all, the protesters were agitating in a democratic manner, though they might have violated prohibitory rules. It's the police who violated law and used force and violence on a group of arrested people in police custody. The matter needs to be sorted out as per law, and the erring persons punished. Times are really difficult. Police personnel, who mostly belong to the state, should understand the circumstances under which the people have been compelled to take to the streets. Any excessive act, more than what's necessary of the official duty, is bound to mark them out as the enemy of the people.