Sometimes figures do not say much for they are mere numbers and statistics and do not portray what lies beneath. Yet, figures are important. Earlier, a report entitled ‘Manipur: Memorandum on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions’ collated and later, submitted by the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights in Manipur and the UN to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Christof Heyns during his visit to India between March 19 and 30 mentioned that altogether 1528 people, including 31 women and 98 children were killed in fake encounters by security forces in Manipur between 1979 and May, 2012. Of these, 419 were killed by the Assam Rifles, while 481 were killed by combined teams of Manipur Police and central security forces, according to the report. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 enacted as a short-term measure to allow the deployment of the army in India’s northeastern Naga Hills has been in existence for five decades over the entire North Eastern States of the country and Jammu & Kashmir and the violations on human lives and security. The impunity that the AFSPA has given to central security forces, what it has meant for the people in the state of Manipur and other states have been well documented: both in numbers and in terms of testimonies. In Manipur, it was the people of the hills of this small state that first bore the burnt of AFSPA. Later on, the valley would also suffer. But what the figures don’t reveal is that most of the men who were killed were in the prime of their lives and left behind widows and children.
What the figures of those killed or ‘disappeared” under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act don’t say is that combing operations, questioning, threats and harassment under cover of the Act leaves a fragile sense of security and has a bearing on the freedom of people to move around. While women are affected while setting out of their homes in search of livelihoods, the children of this state have grown up without knowing what security and safety is, without access to basic health and education facilities following the threat from the hugely militarized environment around them with even security forces occupying educational institutions in certain cases. In Manipur, women in both the hills and plains have come out in response to the excesses committed under the Act and to protest against the excesses committed by security personnel. Through their own women collectives, they come out on the streets in times of public protests and take up night patrols besides also picketing army camps to verify whether those picked up are civilians and at times, not budging from their positions till the surety is given that those picked up are not tortured. Often, women groups stay up late into the nights after taking care of their household and other social obligations, going without proper sleep or rest. The story of the children of Manipur, are told in the many instances of sit in protests taken out by children: the same children who should ideally be in classes or in the safe confines of their home and playgrounds. Young children grow up under the shadow of guns and violence around them while the older ones take part in various protests, thereby severely putting them in conflict with security personnel and triggering off a sense of alienation and distrust.
The PIL to the Supreme Court, filed jointly by Extra-judicial Execution Victim Families’ Association Manipur (EEVFAM), a body of widows and mothers of those killed by police and security forces and Human Rights Alert pleaded for investigations into 63 cases of alleged extra-judicial killings between 2007 and 2012 and another 1,528 cases documented by the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights in Manipur and the United Nations is just the beginning of efforts from various civil society groups and Human Rights defenders to put the spotlight on the excesses committed under the Act. The bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai hearing the PIL case, have gone on record asking whether a war is going on in the state, given the number of killings. The next hearing on January 4 in the new year may well bring new hope into the lives of the members of EEVFAM and pave the way for other women groups to come forward and claim justice.