Army officer booked by CBI in Manipur extra-judicial killing case

NEW DELHI: An Army officer has been booked by the CBI in a case related to alleged  extra-judicial killings in Manipur that are being probed by the probe agency on the orders of the Supreme Court. This is the first such case in 29 FIRs registered by the CBI. Major Vijay Singh Balhara, then attached with Assam Rifles, along with seven other uniformed personnel, has been named as accused in the case pertaining to killing of 12-year-old boy Azad Khan.

The case has been registered under Sections of IPC related to murder. This was termed as a case of fake encounter by a Supreme Court appointed commission led by retired apex court Judge Santosh Hegde. According to the family, Azad was killed on March 4, 2009, the commission had noted. A student of Class VII in Phoubakchao High School, with no criminal antecedents, was allegedly picked up from his home before being killed, the commission note said.

An FIR was registered nearly two months before the alleged encounter under Sections of attempt to murder, Arms Act and other stringent charges. Azad’s family said that Azad and his friend Kiyam Ananda Singh, who was a neighbour and who studied in the same school with Azad, were reading newspaper in the verandah of his home where his parents and relatives were present on that fateful day. At 11.50 a.m., around 30 security personnel came to the house and dragged Azad to a nearby field where he was severely beaten up amid protests from parents, the Commission said in its report. 

Parents, relatives and friends of Azad were locked in a room by the security forces but they could see through the window that after being beaten up, he was shot by one of the Commandos and a pistol was thrown near the body, the Commission’s report said.  “The version of family members was supported by relatives,” the report said. The police had claimed that it got input of terrorists’ movement in Azad’s village, to extort money from people.