An affidavit by a serving Colonel’s wife has alleged systemic killing of suspected insurgents in the North-East. The Supreme Court’s monitoring should restore trust in the rule of law and clear the fog around the killings.

Pradip Phanjoubam

Editor, Imphal Free Press

In the manner of a ghost, the alleged systematic custodial killings during 2009-2012 by an Army unit of the Dimapur based 3-Corps Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (3-CISU) is returning repeatedly to haunt this formation. It is difficult not to be reminded of Lady Macbeth’s exclamations, wracked by guilt, trying to rid her hands of imaginary blood stains: “Out, damned spot, I say!” The 3-Corps is a formation with a large spread of land area under its command, stretching across Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, therefore touching three international borders. It is also one which has thrown up a very large number of Army chiefs, including the last three.The tipping point of some consciences within the 3-Corp establishment apparently came after an alleged spree of cold-blooded killings, in particular of three Manipuri men, Phijam Naobi, R.K. Ranel and Th. Prem, reportedly picked up from Dimapur town in Nagaland in 2010. Their bodies were recovered from a jungle just across the Nagaland border in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district, with tell-tale signs of severe torture on their bodies, including nails driven into their skulls.An elder brother of one of the three men lodged an FIR with the Dimapur police. When the police did not show much interest, the brother approached the Guwahati High Court, which asked a special investigation team of the Nagaland Police headed by a Superintendent of Police to pursue the case. But even this probe dragged its feet inordinately.The Army all along has been claiming no knowledge of the three murdered persons. However, on August 1, a copy of a letter from the Army archives came in the possession of a veteran journalist-activist Yambem Laba. The letter, signed by Col. Shrikumar of the 3-CISU, dated June 30, 2010, is a citation recommending a Captain, Capt. Rabina Kaur Keer, for a Sena Medal for busting a terrorist ring, apprehending and killing three of them. Unfortunately, the three bear the same names as the three whose bodies were recovered from the Karbi Anglong jungle.A few weeks earlier, nervous unease within the 3-Corp establishment again become apparent when Lt. Col. Dharamvir Singh of the 1st Para Regiment, who was also attached to the 3-CISU, was “arrested” by the Army on July 1 from his quarters within the Army’s M-Sector outpost in the heart of Imphal, right next to Imphal’s Zero-mile milestone. Col. Singh had in September 2016 written a letter to the Corp commander inquiring about the progress of the Karbi Anglong bodies case but was reportedly made to withdraw the letter on the assurance that the matter would be brought to its logical conclusion.When nothing was heard from or of her husband after his arrest, Col. Singh’s wife Ranju Singh took the help of some local women to hold a press conference on July 3 at the Manipur Press Club to make her husband’s disappearance public. The Army promptly issued a rebuttal, claiming the officer was only being escorted back to his original post at Dimapur as his temporary assignment at Imphal had ended. The rebuttal also charged that the officer had brought his family along to his post without prior permission from his superiors.When her husband still did not show up, Ranju Singh filed a Habeas Corpus writ with the Manipur High Court, and upon the court’s directions, Col. Singh was produced on July 11. Accompanying him were, again upon the direction of the court, the officers who “arrested” him without warrant, Lt. Col. Nanda and Maj. Rathod, against whom an FIR had been earlier lodged with the Imphal West Police by Col. Singh’s wife. She later also said her husband was tortured during detention. The officers were subsequently charged for wrongful confinement, kidnapping and concealing with criminal conspiracy by using arms.” The Army denied this and reiterated that Col. Singh was only being escorted back to his original post.However, just as Lady Macbeth exclaimed “Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him,” the 3-Corps case too turned even messier. On July 28, the affidavit filed by Col. Singh’s wife on behalf of her husband to the High Court was flashed by the English daily Imphal Free Press. The affidavit charged a lot more blood was spilled than those of the three bodies in Karbi Anglong. The affidavit claimed systematic arrests, tortures, extra-judicial executions and extortions, perpetrated by a 3-CISU team. Apart from the three men killed and dumped in the jungle, there was also the mention of a Manipuri insurgent leader, G. Jiteshwar alias Gypsy, picked up from Dimapur, killed and buried behind the unit’s mess. Another Manipuri boy, Thangjam Satish, a student, who was reported missing since February 5, 2010, the affidavit says was picked up from his rented accommodation in Shillong and killed along with an unnamed companion by the same team. It also mentions a lady and child who were picked up from Dimapur town but released on the payment of a ransom.The affidavit also called for all officers associated with the 3-CISU from 2009 to 2010 to be questioned and paraded before surviving victims for identification. This horrifying picture of brutality and inhumanity, if established, is probably another warning of what power without accountability that draconian laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, (AFSPA), under which the military in Northeast and Kashmir functions, can do to the souls of men and women given it. This must be the “Heart of Darkness” that Kurtz stared into before going mad.