June 18 incident: No admissible evidence found to launch prosecution against CRPF personnel, says CBI
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, October 07 2020:
Central Bureau of Investigation SCB has submitted their final report under section 173 CrPC before the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Imphal West today on the June 18, 2001 incident.
No sufficient admissible evidence came on record during their investigation to launch prosecution against the security personnel of CRPF, said CBI in their report.
Mention may be made that at least 14 persons were killed and more than 50 persons injured in firing by alleged CRPF personnel deployed at the Chief Minister's bunglow on June 18 after a large scale violence broke out in Imphal and protestors tried to storm the CM's Bunglow against the extension of the ceasefire pact between the Government of India and NSCN-IM to the territory of Manipur.
On July 14, 2001, judicial inquiry headed by retired session Judge C Upendra was instituted to probe the June 18 incident.
The investigation was taken up by CBI SCB III New Delhi as per the direction of the Supreme Court of India in connection with the writ petition 129/ 2012 filed by Extra Judicial Victim Families Association, Manipur.
As per the directive of the Supreme Court of India the Director of CBI formed a SIT with five officers to go through the records of the cases, lodge necessary FIRs and complete the investigation.
On January 30, 2018, a case was registered by CBI SCB III New Delhi under section 147/149/353/427/188 IPC, 3/4 PDDP and 7 CLA Act in respect of death of Amom Rajen and others.
Another FIR dated December 5, 2018 under section 302 r/w 34IPC was registered by CBI based on the report of Justice C Upendra Inquiry Commission that the CRPF personnel had no right to continue firing after the agitators/members of crowd started to run and were dispersed from the place of occurrence.
Submitted final/closure report of CBI mentioned that investigation revealed that two FIRs were registered on the death of 14 persons on June 18, 2001 one by City police station and another by Imphal police station.
The FIR registered by City police station was in connection with the incident at Southern Gate of Raj Bhavan and FIR registered by Imphal police was in connection with the incident at Chief Minister's bungalow.
During the CBI investigation relatives of the deceased were examined but most of them couldn't tell exactly about the movements and activities of the deceased on the day of the incident.
Although some of them admitted that on June 18 their relatives were part of the mass rally against the extension of the ceasefire between NSCN-IM and Government of India.
Regarding the FIR lodged by Imphal police station, the available records of the case produced by the then OC K Bobby were seized by CBI through a separate seizure memo on December 13, 2018.However, except the FIR, complaint, few seizure memo, dead body receipt, arrest memo, case diaries, statement of witness, many other important original document including inquest report, post mortem report, sketch map, seized article, earlier final report filed in the Court and order of the Court were not made available.
Scrutiny of the available case record of Imphal police station revealed that no arms and ammunition were seized by local police nor any of the seized articles were produced before the CBI/ SIT at the time of handing over the case record, the report said.
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