Imphal, August 31 2009: Young Lawyers' Forum, Manipur has categorically stated that though the constitution of a Judicial Commission by the Government to probe into the July 23 Khwairamband Bazar incident is a right step, it would be, however, meaningless without proper terms of reference.

An executive committee meeting of the Forum yesterday minutely discussed the Judicial Commission instituted by the Government, and the members present were of the unanimous view that it is a right step taken by the Government and the Commission should be made meaningful by framing proper terms of reference, according to a statement issued by Forum president M Jagajit today.

The statement pointed that if the terms of reference of the Commission, as reported in local dailies, are just to ascertain circumstances leading to the incident in which Chungkham Sanjit and Thokchom (Ongbi) Rabina were killed, while causing injuries to others and to make recommendation to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future, it would not serve the interest of the people and it would be waste of public money.

Moreover, these terms of reference are also redundant in view of the FIR already registered as per the direction of the Gauhati High Court, Imphal Bench with the investigation of the case on, the statement added.

As a result, the Forum, after minutely dsicussing the matter, resolved to approach the Governor and the Chief Minister to take up necessary action to frame the requisite terms of reference of the present Judicial Inquiry, taking into account certain points.

These include details of inquest held under Section 174 CrPC and report of apparent cause of death submitted in respect of killing by State forces/State police in alleged encounter during 2008-2009 upto July 23, 2009 and where there is no such inquest or report, the reason why such procedures were not followed; if the inquest was done or report submitted in contravention of Section 174 Cr PC, details of action to be taken up by the higher police authority and if no action has been taken up, reasons, thereof; details of postmortems conducted on the bodies of people who were killed in such alleged encounters and details of any forensic examination, if not available reasons thereof; the details of the weapons allegedly recovered during alleged encounters and manner of their safe custody and details regarding sending them to experts for opinion, and if there is no such procedure, the reasons, thereof; details of burning bodies when family members refused to accept them in alleged encounter killings and details of evidences collected in such instances, details of the incentives given to police personnel who took part in encounter killings and the procedure for granting the same, the details of the meritorious services performed by the members of the State police for getting police medal for gallantry announced on 14/8/2009 and who are the persons responsible for the lapses if any, regarding the aforementioned and to what extent.

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