Monitoring cases of excesses : FIRs raining on cops
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: August 30 2018 -

Santosh Hegde Committee thundering how can a 12 year old boy be a terrorist ?

Supreme Court coming down hard on the CBI over the slow pace of investigation.

Rebuked by the Supreme Court, CBI pulls up socks and starts raining charge sheets on policemen in the alleged extra-judicial killings case.

FIRs being lodged against police personnel in connection with contentious killings.

On the other hand are the continuous protest meetings held all over the place demanding the mortal remains of some people ostensibly eliminated by the security personnel notably Gurumayum Jiteswar alias Changjou alias Gypsy, Thangjam Satish, RK Ranel, Thounaojam Prem, Phijam Naobi etal be handed over.

Justice yet to be delivered in the killing of Chungkham Sanjit, with the State police first maintaining that he was killed in a cross fire with militants in the heart of BT Road in 2009.

The lie of the State police was exposed when Tehelka published a series of photos showing how Sanjit was first accosted by police commandos in front of Maimu Pharmacy at BT road, taken inside the pharmacy only for the bullet riddled body of the young man to be brought out later.

Killed in retaliatory firing was the line maintained by the State police with even the then Chief Minister conveying the same on the floor of the Assembly the day the killing occurred (The Assembly was in session when the BT Road incident took place in July 2009).

Adding more gist to the story of Tehelka is Head Constable Th Herojit who came out in the open and admitted in front of the camera that it was him who shot dead Sanjit under instruction from the then Additional SP of Imphal West police.

This was some years back.

Fast forward some years and today the case of Sanjit has been brought to the personal notice of Governor Najma Heptulla by none other than the mother of the late youth, Ch Taratombi on August 27, 2018.

Presenting the story to the Governor may not have much impact on the gist of the BT Road 2009 story but it is nonetheless significant that the humane side of the tragedy suffered by the bereaved family has been brought to the notice of the Governor.

More than likely that the story would have touched the maternal instinct in Heptulla and herein lies the story of thousands of mothers whose sons have been eliminated under a ‘formal arrangement’ with the State police unfailingly producing a number of killing machines, all trained to kill in cold blood.

With EEVFAM taking the ‘fake encounter cases’ to the Supreme Court, the security personnel are obviously on the back foot. This is also reflected well at the ground reality.

As any media professional will testify, before the case was taken up in the Supreme Court, late night shoot outs etc were common stories and one can certainly recall the days when crime reporters had to rush to the place of occurrence late in the evening regularly and one line that links all these late evening news stories was, ‘the cops were fired upon and the suspected UGs were killed in retaliatory firing.’

Those were the days when cops in Manipur were known for their haughtiness and their barking orders to anyone once the Sun sets.

Let the ongoing case at the SC proceed to its logical conclusion.