"To Keep Pot Boiling...": Supreme Court Slams Manipur Groups Over Delaying Burial, Cremation Of Unclaimed Bodies

A Supreme Court-appointed committee on the Manipur crisis has found many troubling actions by civil society organisations (CSOs) that contributed to prolonged ethnic tensions on the ground.

In a hearing on Tuesday, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud ordered the state government to give three days for people to claim unidentified bodies, and from Monday to ensure decent and dignified burial to the unidentified and unclaimed bodies.

The three-member committee headed by former high court judge Justice Gita Mittal in their report flagged pressure from the CSOs on families not to perform the last rites of their loved ones whose bodies are in mortuaries, and vested interests who want tensions to remain simmering between communities to prevent peace and harmony from returning to Manipur.

"... For this reason, the true and correct facts of the matter are also not being placed before this Hon'ble Court," said the committee whose other members are retired judges Justice Shalini P Joshi and Justice Asha Menon.

The state authorities in a note to the committee said 94 bodies, of which 88 have been identified but not claimed, and six unidentified are being preserved in two mortuaries in the state capital Imphal and one in Churachandpur district.

The committee said in a meeting in the hill district Churachandpur on October 4, a "victim... had expressed a deep desire to receive the bodies of their father and brother and urgency to perform their last rites. The authorities had assured that the same would be done at the earliest."

Some CSOs, however, opposed the families from performing the last rites "on account of vested interests, and even in order to derive mileage and to compel the authorities to meet unwarranted demands from the situation," the committee said in their report.

Over 180 have died in the ethnic clashes between the hill-majority Kuki tribes and the valley-majority Meiteis that began on May 3, following a protest against the Meiteis' demand for inclusion under the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category.

In August first week, the Kuki tribes announced it planned a mass burial of people from their community who died in the ethnic clashes. They selected a plot in Torbung, which lies between Churachandpur and Bishnupur districts - places that saw intense clashes. The land, however, belongs to the state and it has been used by the government's flagship sericulture project to make silk, according to an eviction notice sent to a village chief in May 2022 to remove encroachments from the state land.

Tuesday's hearing in the Supreme Court saw heated exchanges between Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the government, and senior lawyer Colin Gonsalves, who represented the petitioner Kuki tribes.

When the bench of Chief Justice Chandrachud said it would pass an order to close the issue concerning the burial or cremation of the dead, Mr Gonsalves said, "Please don't do this without us seeing the report (of the committee). That will not be fair to us."

The Chief Justice replied, "Frankly, it appears the idea is only to keep the pot boiling."

Mr Mehta said the CSOs mentioned in the committee's report have been threatening and putting pressure on families who want to have decent burials.

The Supreme Court bench, also comprising Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, said families who have identified and claimed the bodies can select from the nine burial sites that the Manipur government has given. The district collector should make arrangements for a dignified burial and along with the police chief should ensure law and order, the Supreme Court said.

Though the Manipur ethnic violence is said to be over the Meities' demand for inclusion under the ST category, many leaders including Home Minister Amit Shah and Foreign Minister S Jaishankar have said entry of illegal immigrants is one of the main factors behind the unrest in the northeast state, which is ruled by the BJP.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has said it is looking into an alleged transnational conspiracy involving terror groups hiding in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Manipur to exploit the ethnic violence in the northeast state.