More than the killing but the brutality : Three years down the line
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: June 15, 2012 -

Funeral Procession for the last rites of the SDO Th Kishan and his two staff on 23rd Feb 2009 :: Pix - Gnet Cyber Cafe

More than three years down the line and the wound is still raw.

In February 2009, the then SDO of Kasom Khullen Dr Thingnam Kishan and his two subordinates, Rajen and Token, were waylaid by some cadres of the NSCN (IM) in Ukhrul and after a few days their bludgeoned bodies were recovered near Lukhrabi Thong in Senapati district.

If the barbarity of the triple killing outraged the people of Manipur what followed amounted to something like offering salted biscuit to a man dying of dehydration and thirst.

As the brutality of the act numbed the minds of the people and as thousands of people came out on the streets to pay their last respect to the departed souls as the truck carrying their mortal remains wound its way across the roads of Imphal, the Government constituted a high level body to probe the conduct of the then Deputy Commissioner of Ukhrul district with nothing concrete to show even after the lapse of more than three years.

The NSCN (IM) on its part announced that it had expelled the main accused Hopeson Ningshen, but this did not come even halfway to the demand of the people that he be handed over to the State Government.

Thus was sowed the seeds of apprehension that a powerful entity was hell bent on subverting justice and not without reason, with the triple murder coming on the heels of the cases of Lungnila Elizabeth and Hrinii Hubert and Muheni Martin.

The bludgeoned bodies of Dr Kishan and his two subordinates were more than enough testimony of the hatred and brutality that set down the agenda of the killers and more than the act of killing, it was the savagery that shocked and outraged the sensibilities of the people.

Spare the bullet, the spade will do, was the message that was writ large on the mutilated bodies of the three people.

The wound still runs deep. Dr Kishan, Token and Rajen will not return. They are dead.

But there is something called justice and the hope that mankind repose in the concept of justice is what keeps the wheels of society churning. This is what makes the most bitter experience that tad tolerable.

As things stand today, the Tis Hazare Court has already handed over the statement of Hopeson Ningshen to the CBI Special Judge, which is an indication that things are moving.

However it anybody's guess which direction the case is moving.

Apart from this, the father of the late Dr Kishan has also filed a case against the then DC of Ukhrul with the Gauhati High Court.

The manner in which the late officer and his men were abducted before they were brutally killed, the release of the other employees who were abducted along with the three killed, all pointed towards a bigger conspiracy at work and which could not have been carried out at the spur of the moment and without the requisite back up ‘system’.

Justice should not only be about punishing the accused/guilty who were directly involved in the case but should also indict all those who had a hand, wittingly.

Apart from the brutality of the manner in which the three were killed, what stood out prominently and disturbingly so was the meticulous planning that may have gone into the act of abducting them, moving them from one place to another to ultimately bludgeoning them to death.

All these facets taken together made the killings all that more spine chilling and the call for justice all that more urgent.

See all the photo galleries related to the Killing of Dr. Thingnam Kishan here