27 missing in Manipur

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

IMPHAL April 5: Manipur is an insurgeny afflicted state from where arrested suspects had vanished. The supreme court and other lower courts had intervened and it was established that most of them could not be traced out. Instead of pulling up the guilty personnel fincial solaliums were paid to the affected families and it is a miscarriage of justice according to the angry family members.

On the other hand, recently some skeletons were recovered from the heart Imphal town. It is believed that these belong to some persons still missing after reportedly being released by security forces After the initial hue and cry there is a stilted silence now in Manipur about this sensatiol recovery.

On the basis of complaints by the Extra Judicial Execution Victims’ Families Association the apex court had sought the inquiry reports 27 missing persons. The Manipur government has submitted 19 reports.

Reports of seven cases are yet to be submitted while one report is “missing”.

The Manipur government had filed affidavits to the apex court informing these developments. The apex court is yet to act on the submission made by the Manipur government on these issues. There is no acceptable excuse for the failure of the government to submit the inquiry report since the government said that it could not do so due to “certain inconveniences”. What is more there is no explation as  to why the inquiry repot for a case should be missing from the custody of the government.

Sources said that most of the inquiry reports indict the security forces for the excesses committed resulting in the arrest and eventual missing of the persons from custody. Following some high profile arrests the high court had dirrected the security forces on certain issues. The security forces do not get carte blanche and that a person should not be arrested only when his guilt it establish. The army is not empowered to make arrests anyone at random and then try to establish guilt through interrogation. The army has no power to interrogate an arested peron.

Indications are that the supreme court shall come down heavily on the lapses of the state government.