The air is thick in Imphal with anxiety running high, at the outset of the finding of the 8 human skulls from the compound of the former Tombisana High School opposite to old Assembly complex in the heart of Imphal city. Media’s speculative exposures of the case pointing fingers to the dark side of the AFSPA and the tremendous pressure from both the civil society bodies and the opposition political party of the state has left with no choice to the Okram Ibobi Singh government, but to hand over the case to a Central Investigating Agency – CBI.
Well and good, Ibobi government responded quickly this time by throwing the ball to the court of the union government. As according to the official statement, the case has been handed over to the CBI in consideration to the sensitivity, complexity and technical issues which is being involved in the investigation. There are expectations that CBI will reveal the truth – the ‘truth’ about the series of uncountable number of killing that took place by the armed security force under the shadow of the draconian AFSPA. But one thing need to ponder upon is who is the CBI? Why should it reveals something that will spoil the image of the central government who has been advocating the ‘act’ that allows impunity to the armed security force?
Media stands as witness to the speech made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Madison Square Garden, USA at which he said that outdated ‘laws’ will be scrapped by his government. At Myanmar, he had spoken about the need for establishing International Criminal Court, during a meeting of the South East Asian Countries. And when he visited Manipur, he did not speak a word about the real issues like AFSPA. Former Union Home Minister P Chindambaram was quoted speaking against the draconian act while campaigning for the recently concluded Jammu and Kashmir Assembly Election. And we have heard the state unit BJP rubbishing the government for declaring disturbed area status which empowers AFSPA. The interesting part is that now the NDA government led by the BJP stands with the Army when it comes about AFSPA. CBI is an agency of the India government and it is programmed to protect and save the image of the India government. In a country where the “Jeevan Reddy Committee report” remains as a joke, there is no reason to have faith in an agency like CBI.
The investigation to this case of ‘Skull recovery’ needs to be done by some third party which cannot be controlled by the government of India, to reveal the truth. For there may be more such skeleton remains of Manipuri people who were slaughtered under the shadow of the AFSPA.
