New Delhi: More than two weeks after the United Nations brought out a castigating report on the violation of human rights in Kashmir by security forces and “armed groups,” two UN human rights experts have urged the Indian authorities to complete thorough investigations into alleged killings by security forces in Manipur, after officials failed to meet a deadline set by the Supreme Court for inquiries into the cases.
“We are extremely concerned that the delay appears to be deliberate, undue and unreasonable, and we condemn this lack of progress,” the experts said in a press release issued by UN Human Rights Council, Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system.
The two experts are Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions and Michel Forst, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders.
The release said: “In 2012, civil society groups submitted more than 1,500 cases of alleged extrajudicial killings in Manipur to the Supreme Court of India. In many of the cases, the deaths had been registered by the police as due to exchange of fire between security forces and armed groups or individuals. However, the families alleged the cases were ‘fake encounters’ and the individuals had been intentionally killed”.
“In 2013, a Commission appointed by the Supreme Court examined six cases selected at random and found in all cases that the conclusions of the security forces were not genuine, and that none of the individuals killed had established criminal records. The Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) was ordered to conduct investigations into a number of other cases”.
The experts said in their report that the Supreme Court had set three deadlines for investigations into a number of cases to be completed, and three times these deadlines have not been met.
“Some of these families have been waiting decades for these cases to be fully investigated. It is unacceptable that the CBI is failing to meet these deadlines,” said the experts.
Experts added that the Indian government “has an obligation to ensure thorough investigations into all allegations of unlawful killings”.
