Staged Killings in Assam

Staged Killings in Assam

The life imprisonment handed down to three army officers and four jawans by an Army court at Dinjan brings some justice, albeit after 24 years, to the families of five victims of the notorious Dangori fake encounter case. This verdict comes at a time when the country’s apex court is seized of the enormity of staged killings by security forces in States like Manipur. The chain of events in February 1994 at Doomdooma in Tinsukia district had struck fear across Assam about army excesses, and the brazenness with which extra-judicial murders could be carried out in utter disregard of the court. The trigger was provided by ULFA militants gunning down the general manager of Assam Frontier Tea Limited at Talap tea estate. With the Centre taking a serious view of the incident, soldiers of 18 Punjab Regiment swung into action and picked up nine youths. Even as Gauhati High Court ordered the Army to produce the youths at the nearest police station — following a habeas corpus petition filed by the then AASU vice president Jagadish Bhuyan — bodies of five youths were dumped at Doomdooma police station while four youths were let off. It was claimed the five youths, all AASU members, had been shot dead in an encounter at Dibru-Saikhowa national park. But the nature of injuries on their bodies pointed unmistakably to ferocious torture in custody and shooting at point blank range. As spontaneous protests rocked the State and the AASU declared the five victims as martyrs, the suspicion grew that the killings were notched up merely to show ‘results’ of army operations following the ULFA attack at Tilap. Reportedly, it came out later that the five youths were taken by boat to Dibru-Saikhowa and shot dead there. Though Mr Bhuyan again moved the High Court in February 1994 over the encounter deaths, the investigations got nowhere, and in 2000 the case was handed over to CBI. It speaks volumes that years after CBI filed its report, court martial of the accused armymen began only in September 2017. Be as it may, the Army court’s verdict has still come in little more than a year, considering the difficulties in trying a case over two decades old during which time crucial evidence could well have gone missing.

It remains to be seen whether this verdict is confirmed by higher Army authority in Kolkata and New Delhi, after which appeals can still be filed by the convicted at the Armed Forces Tribunal and the Supreme Court. In this context, it is instructive to note the progress of the Manipur fake encounters case in the apex court. In July last year, the Supreme Court had asked the government about as many as 1,528 cases of alleged fake encounters in Manipur. A shortlist of 95 cases was drawn up for preparation of chargesheet, which was later pruned to 41. Till July 5 this year, not a single chargesheet had been filed, prompting the SC bench to chide the government to give “respect” to the case and see it as a “priority”; in the words of Justice Madan B Lokur: “Two things have to be appreciated. We are not talking about just another human rights violation here. We are talking about death, which could be murder. So it has to be given its respect. Secondly, we’re talking about death at a large scale. Whichever way you look at it, this has to be given priority”. Thereafter on July 31, the CBI managed to file two chargesheets, just hours before the CBI Director appeared before Supreme Court to explain the delay in completing the probe into the 41 shortlisted cases, and why nothing was being done to arrest the 14 army officers accused so far. The apex court had earlier rejected the Army argument that the accused officers were carrying out their duties with the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) enforced in Manipur. It is remarkable that when it comes to retaining the draconian AFSPA, successive governments at the Centre have been on the same page, primarily because it is easier for ruling dispensations to deal with militancy as a law and order problem. To those falling victim to misuse of State power, the court remains the only refuge, thanks to its stand that protection and promotion of human rights is a vital aspect of the rule of law.

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