HC disposes cases related to Ops Blue Bird
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, June 13 2019:
Division Bench of High Court of Manipur, comprising of Chief Justice Ramalingam Sudhakar and Justice MV Muralidharan today, disposed 28 year old cases relating to "Operation Blue Bird" which occurred at Oinam village, Senapati district in 1987 .
The Court disposed the said case with certain directions to DC and SP of Senapati district, to identify the actual victims of Operation Blue Bird.
The disposed cases are related to 3 separate petitions filed by the Naga Peoples' Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR) in October of 1987 to the Guahati High Court, accusing the security forces of committing murder, manslaughter, grievous injuries, rape and sexual harassment, arson, looting and theft, desecration of Church, wanton destruction of public and private properties including school buildings, illegal evictions, raids, seizures, illegal detentions and arrests and forced labour.
It may be recalled that on the fateful day of July 9, 1987, suspected National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) raided the Assam Rifles outpost at Oinam hill village at around 12.30 pm and left with a large number of arms and ammunition.
Nine soldiers were killed in the attack and three were seriously injured.
It was reported that the UGs carried away 18 LMGs, 128 SLRs, 4 two inches mortars, 20 Carbine Stens, 400 grenades, 1,28,000 rounds of ammunition and two wireless sets.
'Operation Blue Bird', the code name used for the counter-insurgency operation, was launched on July 11, 1987, under the command of General PL Kukrety, General Officer in Command (GOC), of M Sector and was supervised by Brigadier BN Singh, Manipur Sector, to recover the seized arms and ammunition taken away by the Naga underground group.
Around thirty villages were affected, 125 houses were allegedly burnt, 112 houses, 6 schools and 10 Churches were dismantled, properties worth of Rs 50,75,000 were looted from seven villages and people belonging to five villages were forced to work, 27 persons were alleged to have been killed on different dates in Senapati district, 3 women were allegedly raped and five women were sexually molested while 300 persons were allegedly tortured by Assam Rifles as per the NPMHR.
Since 1988, the people of Oinam Hill (Onaeme) have been observing July 9 as a 'Day of Prayer', abstaining from work and gradually adopted the name 'Onae Reh Dah-The Great Battle of Oinam' for the incident.
On the other hand, the disposal of the 28 years old cases related to "Operation Blue Bird" by the very Division Bench of High Court of Manipur comes after the recent notification of the High Court to give priority towards disposal of old pending cases.
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