Heat on Manipur cops over killing

Imphal, July 12: The residents of Ingourok Awang Leikai are demanding punishment for Manipur police commandos who allegedly killed an “innocent” farmer in a “fake encounter” in Thoubal district yesterday afternoon.


A team of police commandos had shot dead Moirangmayum Ibomcha Singh, 28, of Ingourok Awang Leikai, at Wangbal in Thoubal at 12.45pm. The police claimed he was killed in an encounter and they had recovered a revolver with three live rounds of ammunition from him.


“My husband was innocent and working hard to feed the family. What was his fault?” Ibomcha Singh’s wife Indira Devi told reporters here this afternoon.


Indira Devi, a mother of three children including a three-month-old girl, said her husband had gone out at 9am yesterday to return a scooter that he had borrowed from a friend, Romi, who lived at Yairiok in the district. He had borrowed the scooter the previous day to take her to a doctor in Thoubal Bazar.


“He was carrying nearly Rs 20,000 borrowed from my father to repay a loan taken from the village club development fund. The commandos killed my husband for money,” she alleged.


Thoubal superintendent of police Clay Khongsai said the commandos were deployed in the area following reports of the presence Kangleipak Communist Party (Military Council) cadres there.


“An individual was observed moving suspiciously along Wangbal-Khangabok Road. Instead of heeding the police signal to halt, the youth started fleeing and fired at the commandos, who retaliated and killed him,” he added.


The SP, however, did not say that the deceased was a member of the KCP (MC).


The residents of Ingourok formed a joint action committee this morning to take up the matter with the government. Its convenor, N. Iboyaima Singh, demanded ex gratia for Ibomcha Singh’s family and asked the government to take the responsibility of bringing up his children. He warned of an agitation if the government failed to consider their demands in the next few days.


Indira Devi, her children, relatives and neighbours came here today to meet chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh. However, the police deployed around the chief minister’s office did not allow them.


Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080713/jsp/northeast/story_9541425.jsp