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CORE demands justice for Huirongbam Manichandra Singh

IMPHAL, Dec 2: The Centre for Organisation Research and Education (CORE) Manipur has charged the Manipur Police for conducting their duties in a brutal and extrajudicial manner that is unacceptable according to strictly enforceable national and international norms, guidelines and principles of law enforcement.

Its release said, “It learnt from reliable sources that one Huirongbam Manichandra Singh succumbed to bullet injuries as a result of unwarranted so-called “blank firing” on December 1, 2012 at around 5:40 pm at Thoubal Wangmataba of Thoubal district. This amounts to summary or extrajudicial killing of a peaceful protestor exercising his legitimate democratic rights in a self-acclaimed democracy.”

It continued to say that this summary killing exposes an assumed erroneous and illegal direction that the Manipur Police seems to be acting under. And such direction, if it exists, should be made known to the public. Section 129 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) provides that if protestors of an unlawful assembly do not disperse, they, if necessary, are to be arrested and confined. If it is still not possible to disperse, the CrPC further provides that the law enforcement personnel should use “as little force, and as little injury to person and property, as may be consistent with dispersing the assembly and arresting and detaining such persons”, with the authorisation by the Magistrate, it said.

The CORE also demands to see direct and incontrovertible evidence that a magisterial order was given before the police personnel resorted to firing of live rounds directly at the protestors in Thoubal Wangmataba on December 1, 2012.

The CORE, while expressing regrets and condolences to the family members of the deceased, strongly urges the Home Minister of the Government of Manipur to sincerely keep his word when he committed to wide-ranging police reforms at the time of taking his oath earlier this year and take an immediate incontrovertible stance with regard to police conduct in cases of assumed unlawful assembly in Manipur.

“The illegal action of the police must be investigated in accordance to established departmental and governmental procedures, and the erring persons booked according to the law. Appropriate compensation must be awarded to the family survivors of the victim of police and state violence,” its release added.

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