Voice of protest

Imphal, Nov. 7: An interim report by an independent fact-finding mission to Manipur has urged the Centre and the state government to investigate all cases of alleged fake encounters and also consider the demand for repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

The fact-finding team comprises retired IPS officer K.S. Subramanian, who is also a visiting professor at Jamia Millia University, Sumit Chakravarty, the editor of Mainstream, a weekly journal, Kavita Srivastava, the national secretary of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties, and Vasundhara Jairath of the Deli Solidarity Group.

The team started its fact-finding mission in Manipur on November 5 in the aftermath of the July 23 firing in which passerby Rabina Devi and former militant Ch. Sanjit were killed in an alleged fake encounter by police commandos.

The team prepared the interim report after meeting a cross-section of people, including chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh, director-general of police Yumnam Joykumar Singh and the families of victims of state violence.

The members of the team also met human rights crusader Irom Sharmila and urged the government to consider her demand for repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.

The report says though the police claim that the 260 persons killed by government forces this year were all militants, many of them were killed in alleged fake encounters.

It expressed concern that more than one-fourth of the prisoners in Manipur were detained under the National Security Act.

The team also expressed deep concern over the deteriorating situation and the prevailing climate of “impunity” in Manipur.

The team called for adequate compensation for women and children.

Petition to President

Various citizen’s bodies from all the nine districts of Manipur, led by Women’s Committee of the United NGO Mission, Manipur today petitioned President Pratibha Patil to punish perpetrators of crimes against people from the Northeast in Delhi.

In a memorandum today, the organisations demanded that adequate compensation be paid to the parents of Ramchanphy Hongray, who was killed by an IIT scholar in Delhi on October 24.

The memorandum said the killing of Hongray should not be treated as an isolated case. “This is not the first case of rape, molestation or exploitation of young people from the Northeast in mainland India. In the past, too, so many young girls from the region were molested and raped,” it said.