Spare the bulllets, use the spade : Pushing the envelope of cruelty
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: July 02 , 2014 -

Spare the bullets, use the spade.

This should sum up the cruelty and hate in the dastardly murder of Dr Th Kishan and his two subordinate staff, Y Token and A Rajen Sharma way back in 2009. It was not only the abduction and murder of the three Government employees that sent shock waves across the State five years back but the manner in which the execution was carried out.

Taliban style, it certainly was.

Manipur has witnessed murders, abductions, killings and all sorts of crime, but what sets apart the triple killing of the said three public servants, was the manner in which they were bludgeoned to death.

Five years down the line and justice has actually caught up with the perpetrator of one of the most heinous crimes ever committed on the soil of Manipur, with the CBI Court awarding the life sentence to the main accused, Hopeson Ningshen, a self styled Lt Col of the NSCN (IM), which ironically has been in a peace talk with the Government of India since 1997.

This is not an argument over whether the life term is too lenient for such a gross crime, but to be sure there will be some who will be under the impression that it is not enough and the Ningshen should have been awarded the capital punishment.

This sentiment or rather opinion will obviously rests on the premise of the beastly manner in which the three were done to death.

The CBI Court has delivered its verdict, but no official reason has been given on why the three were so brutally killed while three others, all belonging to the Naga tribe, who were abducted along with Dr Kishan and his two subordinate staff were set free.

Have the three been questioned ?

That the public outrage over the triple murder did not snowball into a communal conflagration speaks volume about the maturity of the people of Manipur and this should be acknowledged by all concerned.

There also remains the question of the status of the then Deputy Commissioner of Ukhrul district when the murder was carried out.

If memory serves us right, a Committee was formed to conduct an indepth study of the case, but five years down the line and nobody seems to know the findings of the Committee.

There is no denying the fact that Dr Kishan, Token and Rajen died in the line of duty and while the NSCN (IM) had disowned Ningshen and stated that there are bound to be black sheep in any organisation, this seemed more like a cover up job five years back.

Instead of tendering an unconditional apology, the NSCN (IM) deemed it better or fitter to take refuge in the ‘black sheep’ alibi.

True, the NSCN (IM) as an organisation was not involved in the dastardly murder of the three public servants, but it should be clear that Ningshen would not have been able to abduct them, keep them under custody for days and then murder them, without logistic support from the organisational set up.

If the NSCN (IM) had admitted this in the public domain, then its standing in the eyes of the public would have gone up a notch or two and would surely have gone a long way in healing the wounds.

Ningshen in jail for life and Dr Kishan, Token and Rajen killed in the most brutal manner.

This is how the equation has worked out.

Yes justice has been delivered, but remember there is no uniform scale to measure justice, as is evidenced by the case put forward by the prosecutor seeking the death penalty of the accused.

This is not to say that one should keep digging up old wounds but yet at the same time, such ghastly crime should not be forgotten.

Not for retribution or to nurture hatred, but to keep reminding ourselves that human cruelty can take heinous forms.

The underlining meaning in this observation is to respect human lives and certainly the manner in which Dr Kishan and his subordinate staff were murdered pushed the envelope of human cruelty.

May their souls rest in peace.