Fake affidavit for fake encounter
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: August 09 , 2013 -

Kh Lata, mother of slain Orsonjit, speaking to media about the wrong affidavit -

As none of reports of the inquiry commissions set by the Government in the past to probe into alleged fake encounter cases in Manipur had ever seen the light of the day, the outright negation of the latest probe report submitted by a Supreme Court appointed-panel has come as no surprise.

But how an unmarried victim has been made out to be a married man with wife and children is really shocking.

After conducting a 14-day hearing in March last at Imphal and New Delhi, the Supreme Court-appointed independent panel, which probed into six sample cases of alleged fake encounters in Manipur (out of 1500 such cases listed), submitted its report on April 4 last declaring all the six cases as indeed 'fake'.

The three-member panel headed by former justice of Supreme Court Santosh Hedge as Chairman with former Chief Election Commissioner JM Lyngdoh and former DGP of Karnataka Dr Ajay Kumar Singh as members, also found gross abuse of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) with little or no effect on insurgency in the State.

However, in their respective counter affidavits filed to the apex court, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, Government India as well as the Government of Manipur have held the report of the probe panel as 'incorrect and legally untenable'.

The Government affidavits contended that all the six cases under probe were not only genuine cases of killing in encounters but also maintained the action of the security personnel were 'well-justified' as they were acting within the ambit of the legal protection available under Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

All these justifications are very well, and one would totally agree with the fact that the security personnel are acting within the ambit of the legal protection 'guaranteed' to them under Armed Forces Special Powers Act.

But the moot question that the Government needs to answer here is, what kind of law and legal protection is that which guarantees immunity to security personnel and made them unaccountable for their actions while at the same time allowing them to use lethal force against even mere suspects.

The Government should understand that it is this provision of immunity which gives wide scope to personnel of Armed Forces to abuse their power, all in the name of security and counter insurgency.

The Government should also understand that empowering personnel of Armed Forces to use lethal force against anyone is in violation of the fundamental democratic principle of criminal justice, which says that a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, deep down, the justification of the Government on the action of the armed forces personnel sounds too hollow.

And, this hollowness has been exposed further when the counter-affidavit filed was filled with 'gross error' wherein one of the victims, who was just a young 19-year old teenager when he was killed, was made into a married man with children.

That is what we would like to call fake affidavit for fake encounter.

By the way, what the Government is going to say now that the mother of the victim has demanded to give her widowed daughter-in-law and grandchildren left behind her departed son?