Allegations of staged encounter : Dead men tell no tale
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 25, 2012 -

Dead men, or for that matter dead women, tell no tale. It is on this premise that fake encounters are staged. Or allegations of fake encounters are levelled against the security forces by aggrieved parties.

Fits in well with the description of a land where the Armed Forces Special Powers Act has been in force for over three decades and where militant groups continue to pop up at the fancy and whims of some elements.

A damning statement on the deep divide that the question of security spawns between the public and state agencies, such as the Army, Assam Rifles and the State police force.

A lose-lose situation, no doubt about it and who is responsible for such a state of affairs in the first place ?

Certain points need to be set straight. Killing a suspect or even a confirmed law breaker in custody has nothing to do with security.

On the contrary it runs against the very essence on which a Nation is founded and sustained.

Obviously this does not matter, at least to the people who are well placed to reverse this flow or rein in such a situation and this is where a set pattern appears.

Charges or allegations of fake encounters rise in direct proportion to the activities of the underground outfits and with bomb blasts returning in the last many days, after a lull of some time, the allegations of fake or staged encounters too have risen proportionately.

More or less a repeat of the same old routine, but the change in approach, however small is perceptible.

From the earlier days of suspected security personnel, all dressed in civvies, picking up suspects in the dead of the night from their residences with the following day/s witnessing an encounter story, it is now the utilisation of 'hatchet men' to call out the suspects which seems to have caught on.

This is, if the allegations raised by family members in the last few days are anything to go by.

In the last one month and in the current month, at least three allegations of security personnel bumping off suspects in custody have been raised.

All the three allegations run through a similar story. That they were called out by people known to them and in two of the stories, the allegations say that they were former militants who had surrendered to the security forces.

Serious charges indeed. But then no one seems the least bothered, at least not Imphal and not Delhi.

In 2004, Manipur remained paralysed for months after Th Manorama was picked up from her residence by Assam Rifles personnel in the dead of the night with the next day witnessing her battered and bullet riddled body splashed across the pages of newspapers published in Manipur.

Another high profile case was the BT Road incident of July 23, 2009, especially after Tehelka published a series of damning photo sequences which showed in graphic detail how Sanjit was accosted by police commandos, shoved inside a pharmacy with his lifeless body later dragged out under the claim that he was killed in a shoot out.

At that point of time, the lifeless body of Th Rabina was lying in a pool of blood below the BT Flyover.

Not yet a full circle, but the situation today is somewhat ominously reminiscent of the days gone by.

Not healthy for anyone. Equating body bags with medals and favourable ACRs may no doubt help an individual or even a unit, but at the same time it erodes the credibility of the institution.

Unfortunate and strange that the Government has not acknowledged this.

Or is it an 'openly unacknowledged' but discreetly accepted policy of the Government ?

This is what should be resisted with all the democratic tools at the disposal of the people.