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Assam government denies custodial death in Cachar encounter

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Assam government denies custodial death in Cachar encounter

Post-mortem reports show riddled with bullets; in an affidavit before the Gauhati High Court, State says a magisterial inquiry was initiated and the report sent to NHRC

Police personnel display the arms and ammunition recovered after an encounter with alleged Hmar terrorists, in Cachar district of Assam, on July 17, 2024.

Police personnel display the arms and ammunition recovered after an encounter with alleged Hmar terrorists, in Cachar district of Assam, on July 17, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI

In an affidavit filed beforethe Gauhati High Court, the Assam government has categorically denied allegations of the custodial death of three Hmar men apprehended by the police in Cachar district. The State government has maintained that the three men were “armed militants” who were killed on July 17 in an intense gunfight that broke out when the police had taken them along for a special operation in the forested Bhuban Hills area.

The affidavit was filed by an official of the Home and Political Department of the Government of Assam on Friday in a matter where the families of the deceased men have approached the Gauhati High Court with a plea to independently probe the alleged “extra-judicial execution” of their kin by the Assam Police in Cachar.

This comes as the post-mortem reports of the three deceased men revealed that each of their bodies had been riddled with multiple bullets from all directions, with the final medical opinion concluding that all three had died — almost instantaneously — from injuries caused by various bullet wounds.

All except for one bullet had ripped through the bodies of the three men, according to the post-mortem reports, which concluded that all bullet injuries, except for one, had exit wounds.

In the affidavit, the Assam government claimed that three of its police personnel also received “grievous injuries” during the exchange of fire, without giving specifics about their injuries. The police personnel are undergoing treatment at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital, the affidavit said.

It added that all police personnel were part of the operation and the apprehended men had protective gear on, including bullet-proof jackets and helmets, despite which they were injured in the exchange of fire.

The Assam government has said that within two days of the incident, a detailed report had been sent to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), an independent investigator from a different district was appointed to probe the case, and a magisterial inquiry had been initiated to look into the matter.

Defending the police’s role in the incident, the Assam government’s affidavit stuck to the version of events presented by the Superintendent of Police, Cachar within hours of the alleged encounter. It said that the police had apprehended the three men — identified as Lallungwai Hmar (21), Lalbikung Hmar (33), and Joshua Lalringsan (32) — allegedly with weapons, near Ganganagar Part VI on July 16, based on specific inputs of militant movements.

They added that during their interrogation, the men purportedly revealed that some of their counterparts were based in the Bhuban Hills area with a cache of weapons. A special operation was planned to dismantle this purported hideout, for which the three apprehended men were also taken along in the early hours of July 17.

During this operation, the alleged militants based in Bhuban Hills opened fire from higher ground to which the police responded and the three men were killed in the gunfight that ensued, the State government said.

According to the trajectory of bullets traced by doctors performing the post-mortem at the Silchar Medical College and Hospital, each of the three men had multiple bullet injuries where the bullet seemed to have entered from below and travelled upwards.

The reports also showed that by the time the post-mortem procedures were being conducted around 6.30 p.m. on July 17, the three men had been dead for at least 12 to 24 hours.

Videos and photographs of the police apprehending the three men on July 16 and then taking them into the forests the following day went viral on social media soon after, which led to many, including the apex tribe body of Hmars, alleging that the men were killed in a “staged encounter”.

No weapons could be seen in the videos of the apprehension that had started circulating on social media.

In its affidavit, the Assam government insisted that it had been receiving intelligence inputs from State and Central agencies about “Kuki/Hmar” militants allegedly regrouping in the Cachar district from as early as June this year, coinciding with the ethnic conflict of Manipur spreading to Jiribam district, which borders Assam’s Cachar.

The Home Department’s affidavit said that these inputs are corroborated by incidents of firing that were reported in the Cachar district, adding that it “clearly establishes their presence in the area for some subversive activities in Assam-Manipur interstate border.

The State government also made it a point to mention that one of the three deceased Hmar men — Lalbikung Hmar — had a history of being arrested with arms and ammunition, and had also allegedly admitted to being associated with a faction of an underground group, the Hmar People’s Convention.

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