Supreme Court's scathing report against the government on encounter killings in Manipur

Hong Kong, 19 July, 2013

"If one innocent person is killed by police or other security forces in a fake encounter, it creates tremendous upsurge of hatred…people always accurately know who was innocent. People even know whether an innocent person was killed by mistake or deliberately…" said the Commission of Inquiry constituted by the Supreme Court of India mandated to investigate cases of extrajudicial executions reported from Manipur, in its report filed in the court.

The Commission has found:

(1) that in all cases, the security forces have blatantly violated the law and procedure and have engaged in cold-blooded murder;
(2) that the use of disproportionate force against the victims by firing at them repeatedly at close range is standard practice;
(3) the complete negation of all legal procedures even by administrating officers including executive magistrates;
(4) open and uncontrolled possibility for wanton use of authority, including fabrication of or destruction or tampering of the evidence and the crime scene and;
(5) the abysmal failure of the draconian law, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 coupled with the perpetual imposition of emergency under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973.

The Commission concludes that such frightening administrative failure in Manipur coupled with impunity and extrajudicial execution is definitely not the way to deal with anti-state activities in the state. Further, the Commission states that the armed forces of India operating along with the Manipur state police enjoys absolute impunity even in cases that involve cold-blooded murder, euphemistically referred to as 'encounter killing' in India.

When the witnesses deposed on behalf of the state before the Commission tried to justify their action citing the reason that persons who lost their lives in encounters are those engaged in terrorist activities in the region, the Commission refused to accept this blind allegation by quoting the witness statement of a Major given on oath "I did not know the identity of the deceased even after he was killed. I came to know the name of the deceased after the same was published in the newspaper." The witness further said "…even if I have not made any enquiry, I knew that he was a member of KCP".

It is evident from the statements of witnesses who have deposed before the Commission that extrajudicial execution of persons were carried out in Manipur where the officers had no information whatsoever about the person they were firing at. This gross abuse of authority underlines the concern that when absolute impunity writs large, the authorities would misuse it, of which human casualty as well as loss of faith in the state is its catastrophical result. Manipur is a living example to this.

The Commission has also concluded that the authorities in Manipur have been violating all procedures that law enforcement agencies would be expected to follow. The Commission has criticised the state as well as central government for having a unipolar approach of dealing with Manipur. The Commission has said " would appear that successive governments at centre as well as state have treated the problem mainly as an issue of public order to be controlled by force through hard provisions of laws like the AFSPA. If there are prohibitory orders under Section 144 Cr.PC for decades at a stretch with the AFSPA enforced, how are people supposed to carry out their daily activities with a sense of security and peace? There is an overwhelming sense of discrimination in the mind of the people and a lack of faith in the honesty and intentions of the central and state government."

The Commission also said that the provisions of yet another draconian legislation, the Unlawful Activities (Prevention ) Act 1967 is systemically misused in the state, reaffirming the conclusions of the civil society working in Manipur and reiterating the concerns expressed by former commissions that have studied the effect of the implementation of AFSPA in Manipur. The Commission said that in all cases involving extrajudicial execution, the pattern is that after killing a suspect, the authorities charge the person of an offense under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. Yet another finding of the Commission is regarding the excessive force used during these executive eliminations. The Commission struggled to find a reason from the state as to why persons were shot repeatedly, for 32 to 40 times at close range even though a single shot would have done the job.

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The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is of the opinion that this report of the Court is one of the strongest statements against state impunity in Manipur. A statement released by the AHRC summarising the findings of the report is available here. The complete text of the report is available here.

About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

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