MANIPUR: RETURN FIRE
Now, serving army personnel move court challenging the FIRs against securitymen in insurgency-hit areas
Two petitions filed in the Supreme Court by more than 700 serving army personnel have challenged the FIRs filed against soldiers operating in insurgency-hit Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast, where they are protected by the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). The petitions contend that exposing military personnel to prosecution for actions during encounters would endanger national security.
The petitions were provoked by the CBI’s investigations into allegations of fake encounters by the army and police in Manipur. In the past month, the CBI has filed six chargesheets against 33 police personnel for extrajudicial killings. This includes the January 2012 killing of Zamir Khan, a suspected militant accused of plotting bombings and the abduction of Congress leaders ahead of the assembly polls. Sub-inspector P. Tarunkumar, who led the ‘encounter’ in East Imphal district, received a gallantry medal for his role. The CBI chargesheet now says the motive behind this encounter was to get gallantry medals. Other chargsheets describe how policemen robbed the victims of cash—Rs 1,500 to Rs 2 lakh— before killing them.
The CBI probe into encounter deaths follows last year’s Supreme Court directive in response to a PIL by two Manipur-based human rights groups, which claim that 1,528 fake encounters were staged in the state between 2000 and 2012. Rejecting any immunity from trial by a criminal court, Justice M.B. Lokur and Justice U.U. Lalit asked the CBI to probe 98 alleged fake encounters in Manipur.
The probes gathered pace only after July 30, when the court summoned CBI director Alok Kumar Verma. The agency said that besides the chargesheets already filed, 20 more investigations would be completed by December 2018 and another 14 in 2019.
The trigger for the petitions was a CBI FIR on July 31, accusing Maj. Vijay Singh Balhara, formerly with 21 Assam Rifles, of the “murder” of 12-year-old Azad Khan on March 4, 2009. The CBI’s FIR states that Major Balhara and seven Manipur
police personnel killed him with a common intent.
The PILs claim that the FIRs have “severely affected the morale of many officers and troops”. Following the two petitions, six Manipur police commandos have also moved court, contending that the remarks by the bench, describing them as “murderers”, had caused critical prejudice, precluding the possibility of a fair trial.
Meanwhile, the fact that the PILs have been filed by serving military personnel has evidently riled army chief Gen. Bipin Rawat. According to officers with whom he shared his displeasure during an interaction in Delhi on September 2, the army chief is worried about the awkward possibility of the Supreme Court decreeing a review or dilution of AFSPA. Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, however, has supported the service personnel.
Manipur human rights activist Renu Takhellambam says she has hope that the victims of fake encounters will eventually get justice and the guilty will be punished. She alleges that her husband Mung Hangzo was eliminated in one of the many fake encounters in April 2007.
Amid this, the army is concerned over its rising casualties in Manipur, consequent to an overcautious approach adopted by field formations following the CBI investigations. Consider this: 2017 saw eight soldiers killed in antiinsurgency operations as against three militants; this year, five soldiers had died till the end of August as against three insurgents. Since 1997, 1,889 army soldiers have lost their lives, but they killed 4,974 militants. But now, all that is under question.