7/29/2019 A War on Manipurs People

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/a-war-on-manipurs-people 1/1

EDITORIALS

Economic & Political Weekly  EPW january 5, 2013 vol xlviII no 1 9

“

I

s there a war going on in your state?”, the Supreme Court

recently asked the Manipur government while considering

its reply on the issue of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 ( AFSPA). The apex court was hearing a public interest

litigation filed by the Extrajudicial Execution Victims’ Families

 Association and Human Rights Alert, based on the latter ’s

documentation of 1,582 extrajudicial killings over the last 30

 years in Manipur. The mothers and widows of those who have

died or disappeared have asked that a special investigation

team (SIT) handle the cases, ensure that eyewitnesses and other

family members can give evidence, that the latter be financially 

compensated and that no law come in the way of prosecution of 

the men in uniform in cases of fake encounters.

The question the apex court asked is relevant not just for

Manipur, where AFSPA gives arbitrary powers to army personnel

 when dealing with suspected insurgents with zero account-

ability for their acts. Similar extrajudicial killings have taken

place elsewhere in India where  AFSPA does not apply. These

cases of fake encounter deaths have exercised the public as they 

illustrate the flagrant violation of human rights by men in uniform.

The petition gives details of several cases wherein young men

going about their daily routine were picked and killed in cold

blood by the security agencies and the Manipur police. No

criminal investigations or departmental inquiries were conducted

despite hundreds of complaints. The few magisterial inquiries

that took place were conducted in secrecy without intimation tofamily members and eyewitnesses and, needless to say, resulted

in exonerations. The petition points out that this has only 

emboldened the police and security forces who kill and torture

 without any fear and has led to the breakdown of the criminal

 justice system in Manipur where citizens simply do not have the

protection of Article 21 that guarantees the right to life.

Even if the State argues that Manipur’s case is specific and dif-

ferent, it is difficult to justify the continuing use of such a draco-

nian law. Last month, the state cabinet decided to extend for one

more year the “disturbed area” status and AFSPA to the entire state

other than the Imphal municipal areas. Citizens and rights groups

have for long demanded that this Act should go. The attitude of 

the State is best witnessed by the replies that both the centre and

state governments gave before the Supreme Court in the present

petition. Apart from the traditional argument that repealing the AFSPA will demoralise the army fighting the insurgents, the cen-

tre said that the petitioner while blaming the government did

not have anything critical to say about the “anti-national forces”!

The centre wanted the petitioner to encourage the insurgents to

 join the “mainstream of national life after laying down arms and

getting financial packages offered by the central government”.

This is ample proof that neither the centre nor the state govern-

ment feels it incumbent upon them to review the powers given to

the men in uniform even in the light of the popular anger. This

anger reached its zenith with the shocking case of Chungkham

Sanjit who was killed in cold blood on 23 July 2009 in Imphal by 

police commandos who later planted a weapon on him and said

he had shot a pregnant passerby. The 23-year-old woman had

actually been killed by police bullets. It was only after Tehelka 

published telling photographs that the police’s act was exposed.

Fact-finding groups and committees, many of them with

retired police and judicial officers as members, have observed

that the lack of accountability and arrogance shown by the men in

uniform has only fuelled the ordinary Manipuri’s anger against

the authorities. In their desperation, Manipuris have risen to

extraordinary acts to demand repeal of the AFSPA and denounce

the high-handedness of the armed personnel posted there. The

most iconic of these protests is the ongoing over a decade longfast by Irom Sharmila and the 2004 “naked” protest by a group

of middle-aged Manipuri women who stood outside the Assam

Rifles’ headquarters in Imphal with the banner “Indian Army:

Rape Us”. The latter were protesting the rape and killing of 

Thangjam Manorama who was arrested for being an alleged ex-

tremist. In fact, women have been an integral part of the protest

against the torture, killings and enforced disappearances that

have marked the anti-insurgency operations in the state.

The state cannot be at war against its own people. Laws such

as  AFSPA solve nothing; all they create is greater resentment

and anger in ordinary people who want peace but who face the

consequences of a war that they did not declare or want.

 A War on Manipur’s People

 Manipuris continue to campaign against extrajudicial killings by the men in uniform.