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Imphal, Jan. 8: The Supreme Court has directed the Centre and Manipur government to extend “full facilities” to the inquiry commission constituted by the apex court on January 4, following a petition filed by Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families’ Association, Manipur and Human Rights Alert, Imphal.
The petition listed 1,528 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur between 2007 and 2012 by police and central forces.
The Supreme Court order, received today, named members of the three-member inquiry commission. The Supreme Court passed the order on January 4.
The commission members are Justice N. Santosh Hegde, a former judge of the Supreme Court, former chief election commissioner J.M. Lyngdoh and former director-general of police, Karnataka, Ajay Kumar Singh.
Lyngdoh is the chairperson of the commission.
The order asked the commission to make a thorough inquiry in the first six cases as detailed by the petitioners and record a finding regarding the past antecedents of the victims and the circumstances in which they were killed.
It also directed the state government and all other agencies concerned to hand over to the commission, without any delay, all records, materials and evidences relating to the cases.
“The central government and the government of the State of Manipur are directed to extend full facilities, including manpower support and secretarial assistance as may be desired by the commission to effectively and expeditiously carry out the task assigned to it by the court,” the Supreme Court said.
“The state government and all other agencies concerned are directed to hand over to the commission, without any delay, all records, materials and evidences relating to the cases, as directed above, for holding the inquiry,” the order said.
The order said it would be open to the commission to take statements of witnesses in connection with the inquiry conducted by it and it would, of course, be free to devise its own procedure for holding the inquiry.
In the light of the inquiries made by it, the commission will also address the larger question of the role of the state police and the security forces in Manipur, it said.
“The commission will also make a report regarding the functioning of the state police and security forces in the state of Manipur and in case it finds that the actions of the police and/or the security forces transgress the legal bounds, the commission shall make its recommendations for keeping the police and the security forces within the legal bounds without compromising the fight against insurgency,” the order said.
The commission was asked to give its report within 12 weeks from January 4.
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