NEW DELHI: Days after the Supreme Court ticked off the Central Bureau of Investigation for not arresting any of the army officers charged with killing locals during militancy operations in Manipur, the investigating agency booked an Army Major on Thursday.
Major Vijay Singh Balhara, who was then with the Assam Rifles, has been named as an accused along with seven others in the case related to the killing of a 12-year-old boy Mohd. Azad Khan in March 2009.
The SC-appointed panel, led by retired judge Santosh Hegde, had termed the encounter as fake. All the accused have been booked under various sections of the IPC. According to the Hegde panel, Azad was a Class VII student with no criminal antecedents and was picked up from his home before being killed. “According to the evidences provided by security forces, the deceased was suspected to be a member of the Peoples United Liberation Front (PULF),” the panel said. According to the Manipur government, PULF was not a banned organisation.
Azad’s family claims he was picked up when he, along with a friend Kiyam Ananda Singh, was reading a newspaper. They said around 30 security personnel entered the home. The commission states that Azad was dragged to a nearby field where he was beaten up in front of his protesting parents.
“Azad’s parents, relatives and friends were locked up in a nearby room and they saw a commando shooting Azad through a window. A pistol was thrown near his body,” the report stated adding that Major Balhara’s version was in contradiction to the other witnesses’ accounts. The police claimed they had received information regarding terrorists’ presence in Azad’s village. They said they saw two men running through the bamboo grooves and also fired at them.
The panel also noted it was unfathomable that 20 trained security personnel with AK-47s and Insas rifles could not overpower or disable Azad and were scared when he was firing at them with a 9mm pistol.
85 encounter deaths, 29 FIRs by CBI
The SC had in July last year handed over 41 cases of alleged fake encounters to the CBI. Around 85 people had died in the encounters. So far, the CBI has registered 29 FIRs
What the Supreme Court said
“According to you (CBI), there are 14 murderers in these cases and they loafing around Manipur freely? You haven’t arrested any of them?” said the bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and UU Lalit. “The CBI filed FIRs against dead persons who are victims. This is unbelievable,” the court observed