Imphal:
At least eight human skulls and other skeletal remains have been found in the last 48 hours at the construction site of a new market complex in Manipur's capital Imphal. The site previously housed a government-run school before it was occupied by the central paramilitary forces. The Manipur government has said that it will seek a Central probe into the issue.
The discovery has led to more worries for the families of those in Manipur whose relatives disappeared in the last three decades or so, their bodies never found. For long, these families have alleged that those who disappeared were actually killed in counter-insurgency operations in the state, most of them fake encounters, and the bodies were dumped away.
Manipur has often seen allegations of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings by security forces. A clubbed case of over 1,500 fake encounter killings is currently pending in the Supreme Court.
The construction site where the skeletons were found used to be a high school that got shifted to another part of the city many years ago. Since then the site was used by different security agencies in Manipur, before the state government decided to build a new market complex here. Digging was on here for the last few days.
"The fact is that the school complex where the eight skulls and skeletons were recovered were previously occupied by both central paramilitary forces and state police commandos as their outpost during the height of counter-insurgency operations in Imphal where cases of involuntarily disappeared occurred," said Md. Baniyamin, General Secretary of Families of the Involuntarily Disappeared's Association, Manipur.
The Manipur police, which has registered a case, is so far non-committal on the controversy, saying they will send the skeletal remains for forensic evaluation. Sources in Manipur's University's anthropology department, who inspected the remains, say they could be anywhere between 17 to 40 years old.
Human rights activists in Manipur say they want a thorough enquiry in the case.
"Who knows how many skulls are still to be unearthed which hold with them stories which could be heinous or not, this need to be found out. It is the responsibility of Government to conduct a proper inquiry after carrying out scientific excavation," said Babloo Loitongbam, human right activist.
For now, the Families of the Involuntarily Disappeared's Association says they will petition the chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh to immediately get digging in the area stopped, and a thorough inquiry to be conducted. Till then, the tension around this discovery, is set to continue.