Village chief alleges fake encounter
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, May 26 2015 : Pauline who was among the three people gunned down by a combined team of 11th Para Regiment and 2nd AR at B Gamnom village under Yairipok police station on May 23 was a civilian and he was killed in a fake encounter, said B Gamnom village chief Henkhothang Kipgen and some other villagers who witnessed the scene.

Talking to a team of media persons who went to the village yesterday, the village chief that a team of security forces who were approaching a newly constructed Church, a little distance away from his own residence started firing at around 10 am of May 23 .

Soon after, security forces who had already surrounded the village from three directions started firing.

Village where the incident occurred and two UNLF cadres (R)

Around one hour before the firing began, six unknown persons arrived at the village and all of them were carrying haversacks.

They asked the village chief to give them some food.

As the village chief's family was preparing food for the unknown persons, firing started from four directions.

On hearing the gun shots, villagers started fleeing from their homes and the six persons too ran away leaving behind their haversacks.

The firing continued for almost one hour.

On seeing the villagers running away in different directions, Pauline who was then working at the Church started running towards the village.

But he was hit by a bullet on the leg and he fell down just 10 metres away from the Church.

Then some security personnel dragged away Pauline towards a grove of banana plants and there they shot him dead.

Pauline was also the Church secretary, Henkhothang Kipgen said.

Of the six unknown persons, two ran towards the village entrance and they were gunned down by security personnel who had taken their position there.

The villagers were not allowed to see even the dead pictures.

Pauline was identified by his wife from the photographs taken in mobile phones and shown to her by some security personnel.

The haversacks left behind by the unknown persons were taken away by security forces and they did not disclose anything to the villagers what were inside the haversacks.

It was not clear whether the unknown persons were insurgents or civilians but they did not possess any arms.

Even as the village womenfolk tried to stop the security forces from carrying away the dead bodies on the ground that all the three were killed in a fake encounter, the security forces somehow managed to make their way.

Before the firing incident, the village was surrounded from all directions and when they (security forces) came to the village, there were four people who spoke Kuki dialect, conveyed the village chief.

The sequence of events revealed that the security forces got information about the movement of the six unknown persons in advance.

Even if all the six unknown persons were insurgents, only the security forces fired, added the village chief.