IMPHAL, May 17: The one man PG Agarwal Commission has today submitted its report to the state government regarding its probe of the controversial BT road firing incident of July 23, 2009 leading to the death of two persons and injury of five others.
The final report of the inquiry was submitted formally by the chairman of the commission, retd. Justice PG Agarwal at the temporary commission office opened at Imphal Hotel this morning to the additional secretary, state Home department M Yaiskul Meitei.
Retired justice PG Agarwal, chairman of the commission while giving a short interview to media persons soon after the submission of the inquiry report this morning at Imphal Hotel clarified that, even though the commission report was supposed to be submitted in six months from the date of its institution, the probe was time consuming and the time had to be extended because of the various process of verifications of the witnesses and as the commission was compelled to scrutinize all the statements of the witnesses from all angle.
He further stated that the commission had to verify both the police statements and the photographs published by the New Delhi based news Magazine Tehelka which were both contradictory to each other.
Talking to the media, PG Agarwal said that the commission had planned to wrap up the inquiry in nine months but it has taken one-and-half years to complete because the Science of Forensic Laboratory, New Delhi , took six months to examine the photographs published by Tahelka magazine.
It is also officially mentioned that the Justice PG Agarwal Commission to probe the July 23, BT road firing incident took one and half year in completion of the hearing and during which the commission had taken statements from 21 witnesses including the police personnel involved in the incident, injured victims, eye witnesses and well wishers of the victims.
And that the final report of the commission contained 80 pages.
During the hearing of the commission, some of the injured persons of the July 23 incident did not turn up as they were reportedly undergoing treatments at AIIMS and Apollo in Delhi. They had consequently been relieved from appearing before the commission.
As far as the report was concerned, Mr Agarwal said that he is not permitted to share the contents as it was sealed and would only be opened at the floor of the state Assembly when it meets to discuss on the issue.
In the meanwhile, the CBI has already chargesheeted seven Manipur police personnel including one inspector and six police personnel who have been placed under suspensions by the state government who are allegedly involved in the `fake encounter` of July 23.
It may be mentioned that, with due pressure from various apex civil society organizations and family members of the victims of July 23 BT road firing incident, the state government had handed over the case to the CBI.