The law says, a person accused of a crime is innocent until proven guilty. This is exactly what the state Home Minister Gaikhangam is trying to say. His statement is indeed timely in wake of a new spurt of police violence and encounters in recent months. In most of the encounters, claims from family members that the victims were either arrested from home or some other place has come up. In the last few months the momentum of encounters had suddenly increased sometimes even involving surrendrees. People had started to question whether there is a design or unstated policy in the spate of recent encounters. And suddenly, the encounters stopped. Perhaps it was because of the Supreme Court admitting a petition filed by Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families Association (EEVFAM) earIy this month or the action taken up against police commandos involved in the recent encounter at Lamdeng, where a person hauled up by suspected policemen in mufti was killed. IFP had published a damning photograph of a spotless 9 mm gun in the bloodied hand of the victim in the Lamdeng ‘encounter’. This is nothing short of policemen playing the role of judge and executioner. In the height of ‘fake encounter’ season in 2008-09, most of the guns recovered from slain suspects were 9 mm guns. And most of the ‘encounter sites’ were isolated spots where few venture out in the dark. And these ‘encounters’ have been happening at a time, when the public angst against the faction ridden groups had risen to a new scale with even some of them threatening the local press. These are all telltale signs of the ‘fake encounter’ season. The petitioners in the present case had placed 63 cases with detailed documentation from 2007 to 2012 and also a list of 1528 cases of extrajudicial executions compiled by the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights in Manipur. The petition had put in a demand for setting up of a special investigation team to investigate the cases, conducting disciplinary proceedings in all the cases listed and to facilitate the giving of evidence by the family members and other eyewitnesses to punish the guilty, paying compensations to the families of the victim, declaring that the sanction under section 197 Cr.P.C and section 6 of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 or any other similar provision in any other law is not necessary to be obtained in cases of fake encounters. It may be recalled here that in the wake of a series of fake encounter cases in 2008-2009 in Manipur and other states of India, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had laid down several guidelines with regard to all encounter cases. The Commission had directed state governments to take appropriate action with regard to the investigation of the case as per the guidelines laid down by the Commission in its letter dated May 25, 2010 addressed to the Chief Ministers of all the States. There are developments of course after these directives. Many magisterial inquiries have been instituted with regard to alleged encounters and now it has become mandatory for an on-site investigation by a Forensics team before the dead body of the victim is picked up by regular policemen. These are check and balance measures incorporated in the inbuilt mechanism of crime investigation. The most important issue is the attitude of not only the police but the public towards persons arrested against a crime. The police necessarily assume that every person they arrest or detain is guilty which again infects the mind of the arrestee. They also forget the fact that they are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. On the other hand, the general public again tends to believe that a person arrested by police must be guilty. If innocent, why should he or she be picked up by the police or security forces? They ask. It is indeed a vicious cycle. Such attitudes have become a major driving force in mob violence against persons suspected of crimes. Once someone points a finger at a person suspected to be involved in a crime, the vigilante groups gang up and demolish the houses of the suspects and sometimes lead to ostracizing the suspect and family. They do not wait for evidence nor do they believe in police handing out justice. So, instant justice is delivered. This is indeed a very dangerous trend for our society. And the state Home Minister needs to go beyond words and statements if he is really serious about clearing the air of suspicion.
