Richard Loitam case keeps alive justice for Laaba
Source: Hueiyen News Service / Newmai News Network
Imphal, May 03 2012:
Encouraged perhaps by the overwhelming response of people from different parts of Manipur as well as the country to book and punish the culprits of the alleged murder of Richard Loitam, a second semester student of Acharya NRV School of Architecture, Bangalore, the death of another student of B.C.A., (L) Okram Laaba in the Hindustan College of Arts & Science in his hostel room on June 23, 2011 in Tamil Nadu in a suspicious manner has been brought out requesting all the students' organizations of Manipur as well as the country to render help in finding out the truth about the suspicious death of the late Laaba.
In this connection, Okram Indramani Singh, f/o (L) O.Laaba, said that his son died in his hostel room (No.111), Padur, Kellambakam, Tamil Nadu in a suspicious manner with a plastic carry-bag covering his face and the post mortem report revealing the cause of death to be due to "suffocation and viscera negative of drug and poisoning".
Though the cause of his son's death was reported to be a suicide, O.Indramani found that the death of his son was suspicious after collecting evidences from the spot in the month of April this year.
He suspected that the death of his son was a murder and the warden of the hostel and a student named Ashwin are suspected to be involved in the crime, alleged Indramani.
During his stay at Kellambakkam recently for performing the last rites of his son, O.Indramani talked to the warden of hostel where his son was staying and also to the room-mates and friends of his son and learned that several crucial links that might have helped in solving the mysterious circumstances of the death of his son were ignored by the investigating authority and that the investigation was not progressing satisfactorily and in the right direction, the father lamented.
"The investigating authorities have taken a rather lackadaisical attitude in dealing with the whole investigation, and the motive of the authorities in trying to hush up the matter by simply attributing the cause of death of my son to 'suicide' without any concrete corroboration brings me to question as to whether the police officials are there to fight against crime in general or are they more concerned about preserving the image and reputation of their own state only through communal divide", stated O.Indramani.