It began when the Army’s top brass in the North-east allegedly decided to rein in Lieutenant Colonel Dharamvir Singh, operating as the Commanding Officer of the 3 Corps’s Counter Intelligence and Surveillance Unit in Imphal, by arresting him on 1 July 2018. He was thereafter taken to Dimapur for de-briefing. Apparently, the top brass had suspicions that the officer in question was turning rogue and was poised to reveal the CISU’s dealings. Singh’s wife then approached the Manipur High Court with a habeas corpus petition and the Army was forced to release the officer, who returned to a hero’s welcome in Imphal.

In his subsequent affidavits before the High Court, Singh revealed how the CISU had allegedly abducted and killed three Manipuri young men in Dimapur after subjecting them to heavy torture and dumped their bodies in a jungle in nearby Karbi Anglong in Assam. He is also said to have revealed how the Assistant Publicity Secretary of the proscribed People’s Liberation Army was first apprehended and subsequently killed after extorting Rs 20 lakh from his kin. He mentioned how a Manipuri student along with another person was abducted from Shillong and later killed in the jungles of Masimpur in Assam’s Cachar District.

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Singh’s revelations startled the Army which ordered a Court of Inquiry by a serving Major General from the Corps stationed in Jaipur. General Shukla, who headed the Inquiry, arrived in Imphal, and said there were a lot of blanks to be filled in and requested my help for the same. That was last year and one does not know the findings of that Inquiry till date.

However, Singh in his latest submission before the Manipur High Court made another revelation about the alleged presence of an illegal and clandestine armory within the complex of the M-Sector, which also serves as the Tactical Headquarters of the 57-Mountain Division. This came to light because the Army is said to have recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from the M-Sector premises on the day of his arrest.

In his submission, Singh asked why, even after almost nine months, no FIR has been lodged by the state government as he contends the recovery of illegal arms and ammunitions constitutes a cognizable offence under the Arms Act and the Indian Penal Code. Arguing for Singh, Shreeji Bhavsar, an advocate of the Supreme Court, said that as per the Arms Act, in case of the recovery of any illegal arms and ammunition, it is mandatory to give that information to the officer-in-charge of the nearest police station or the magistrate of the area. Also, the recovered illegal arms should be delivered without any delay to the nearest police station. No such thing happened even after nine months of the alleged recovery.

The lawyer also argued that it is pertinent to investigate from where and whom the alleged illegal arms and ammunition came to be at the M-Sector Army detachment. He also said the motive behind depositing illegal arms and ammunition for two years inside the barracks needs to be probed. Since at any point of time there are two or three officers and 15-20 jawans present within the M-Sector premises, Bhavsar argued it would not be possible for any individual officer or jawan to stockpile any arms secretly.

Therefore, he said, it needed to be investigated how many personnel posted in the said detachment had knowledge about the presence of illegal arms and ammunition, and why they did not inform the higher authorities about the matter. And in case the same was informed, the fact that no action was taken by the higher authorities should also be investigated, Bhavsar said.

It was also pointed out that the Supreme Court of India had ordered a Special Investigation Team to probe 41 cases of extra judicial killings in Manipur and it has filed charge sheets in eight of those cases. It thus becomes pertinent to ask whether such illegal arms and ammunition were planted on the dead bodies of innocent civilians to frame them.

This is the first time an officer of the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel has written to the High Court about the clandestine presence of such an arsenal with the Army. The High Court had no choice but to issue a notice to the state government, which is expected to be acted upon. But the question remains whether the Army would answer the queries from the state government at all.

(The writer is the Imphal-based Special Representative of The Statesman)