IMPHAL, July 16: The Centre for Organisation Research and Education (CORE) Manipur, following a visit today to meet the grieving family of late Sapam Robinhood Singh, reportedly killed by police firing, is deeply concerned that the Manipur police had filed a suo moto First Information Report (FIR) on July 8 against the students who were on a peaceful rally, in full school uniform, in support of the campaign to promulgate a Inner Line Permit System in Manipur.
A statement of the organisation said falsely naming the reported peaceful students in the rally as an `unruly mob` carrying dangerous weapons obstructing the police from discharging their duties and threatening to destroy government property, the police report filed on the same day as the rally, sought to justify the use of disproportionate force in clear violation of existing norms and guidelines of crowd control.
It said according to the report filed by the Officer in Charge of the Porompat Police Station, Imphal East District, the unnamed executive magistrate on duty on that day had issued orders `to use minimum force like lathi charge, tear gas, shells and rubber bullets` to disperse the crowd.
It continued the report clearly indicts the executive magistrate for the `permission` to use force; but the use of `minimum force` does not, by law and any stretch of imagination, include the use of disproportionate use of force as evident in the report.
However, no mention was made in the report of the OC of Porompat Police Station that a PA system was used to warn the rallying students or that water cannons were used to discourage the rally from proceeding into a sensitive zone of Imphal City, further according to the statement.
The police, according to the report which forms the basis of the suo moto FIR No. No. 205(7)015 PRT-PS u/s 147/148/149/353 IPC and 7 Criminal Law Amendment Act dated 08/07/2015, adopted destructive violent steps and the use of maximum force upon the unarmed peaceful students in the rally, it claimed.
The statement further decried that it is unacceptable that even after almost 10 days after the incident, which the FIR mentioned, no investigation has commenced and no police officers have ever visited the families of the deceased late Sapam Robinhood Singh and the injured students even after the fact prima facie evidence exists of an unnatural death and injuries to many as a consequence of police firing and use of disproportionate force.
The grieving family of late Sapam Robinhood Singh is yet to claim the dead body of the child kept in the morgue of JNIMS Hospital, Porompat to perform his last rites, and persons wishing to pay condolence visits in accordance with customary practice have been harassed by the police, the statement said.
The family is in deep shock and mourning, not only from the sudden and violent loss of a talented child but by the contents of the FIR that lays the entire blame on all the students participating in the peaceful rally. We believe that the students of Ananda Singh Higher Secondary Academy who are the victims of arbitrary violence and killing by the police stands falsely accused of rioting and carrying dangerous weaponry, it said
We remind the government of Manipur that India is a state party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), duly ratified by Parliament, and is fully obliged to fully protect and promote the rights of the child to participation, freedom of expression and association, it said.