KHELEN THOKCHOM
|
| The Supreme Court |
Imphal, Sept. 25 : Human rights
activists in Manipur have welcomed the Supreme Court’s directive to
state governments to probe all encounter killings, as a “positive”
development.
Chief Justice R.M. Lodha and Justice R.F.
Nariman yesterday gave the directive while dealing with a PIL filed by
Peoples Union for Civil Liberties.
The two-judge bench ruled that all
encounter killings would be probed by the CID of the state concerned or
any police station except the one under whose jurisdiction the alleged
encounter took place.
“We welcome the Supreme Court’s ruling,
calling for probes into encounter killings, given the track records of
fake encounter killings in Manipur and the government’s inaction over
them,” Babloo Loitongbam, executive director of Human Rights Alert,
Manipur, said.
Loitongbam expressed the concern that the
role of the security forces — the army and Assam Rifles — in encounter
killings could not be brought under the directive of the Supreme Court.
The army and Assam Rifles have been given
protection by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from prosecution.
Without the sanction of the Centre these forces could not be prosecuted.
Two identical petitions filed by Human
Rights Alert, Manipur, and Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families’
Association, Manipur, seeking constitution of a special investigation
team to probe 1,528 alleged fake encounter killings in the state are
pending before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has constituted a
committee, headed by Justice Santosh Hegde, to probe six cases chosen at
random from the list of 1,528 cases. The committee’s findings said all
the six cases were fake encounter killings. The apex court will hold the
next hearing in the fake encounter killings petitions on October 14.
While welcoming the rulings, rights defenders expressed doubts over how far the state government would follow the guidelines.
“It (ruling) is a positive outcome.
However, given the indifferent attitude of the state government we
cannot say fake encounter killings will be checked after the ruling,”
Rakesh Meihoubam, director, Human Rights Law Network, Manipur, said.
Rights activists said in most cases of
alleged fake encounter killings, the state government remained silent
and only ordered inquiries if there were public uprisings. Moreover, the
government usually does not act on the findings of the inquiries.
The cases of fake encounter killings came
down drastically after a public uproar against killing of a pregnant
woman and a former militant by police in Imphal in an alleged fake
encounter in 2009.
The Supreme Court also ordered mandatory
filing of FIR in every case where death occurs, inquiry by a magistrate
and “video graphed” autopsy by at least two doctors.
The apex court also banned immediate out-of-turn promotions for police personnel involved in such alleged encounter killings.
