Last Thursday’s order of the Gauhati High Court asking the Government of India to pay compensation of Rs 20 lakh each to the families of five young men killed by the Army during an anti-insurgency operation in Assam’s Tinsukia district way back in 1994 has come as a much-awaited relief for the families of the deceased. No verdict can bring back the precious lives. But the fact remains that some officers of the Army did misuse provisions of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, and this direction of the High Court has only vindicated this. Way back on February 18, 1994, the Army had picked up nine youths from villages under Doomdooma Circle in the Tinsukia district, in connection with the murder of a tea garden manager. Five of them were murdered in cold blood, and the incident was sought to be shown as an encounter with ULFA militants. While the Army had tried its best to establish it as an encounter, the then AASU assistant general secretary Jagadish Bhuyan took the matter to the Gauhati High Court by filing a habeas corpus petition immediately after the incident. Based on Bhuyan’s petition filed on February 22, 1994, the high court asked the Army to produce the nine youths at the nearest police station. Simultaneously, the then Circle Officer of Doomdooma submitted an inquest report which proved that it was a case of a fake encounter. Though the AFSPA provides a lot of immunity to security forces, the Army too was compelled to constitute a general court martial. After several years of inquiry and hearings, a summary general court martial in October 2018 pronounced seven Army personnel, including a Major General, guilty of the murder of the five youths in a fake encounter and awarded them life imprisonment. The five deceased were Prabin Sonowal, Akhil Sonowal, Debijit Biswas, Bhaben Moran, and Pradip Dutta. The Army personnel convicted by a summary general court martial are Major General AK Lal, Colonel Thomas Mathew, Colonel RS Sibiren, Captain Dilip Singh, Captain Jagdeo Singh, Naik Albindar Singh, and Naik Shivendar Singh, all belonging to the 18 Punjab Regiment then located at Dhola.