Manipur police have registered at least 6,000 cases since ethnic violence erupted in the northeastern state on May 3. Among these FIRs in different police stations, which are majorly against unknown persons, 70 are murder cases, top-level sources said.
Police said a total of 657 people have been detained from both the Imphal Valley and surrounding hill areas in cases linked to clashes in different districts. According to top officials in the Manipur administration, 70 murder cases have been registered in different police stations.
But for such a large number of cases, Manipur only has around 2,000 sub-inspector rank officers authorised to conduct probes. Officials said since maintaining law and order in the state is more important for police, in maximum cases, investigations have not even started or are at an early stage.
Sources claimed that there are personnel who have been deployed or chosen to be deployed in areas belonging to their community; some have even left their primary police station as they were in the area jurisdiction of another community.
“Almost every day, we are registering around 75 cases but we have a limited number of staff to probe them. These staff are also deployed to maintain law and order. Also, we are not keen on sending cops of one community to the area of another community as there may be a threat to their lives. In case we manage to nab an accused, transportation is also a tough task because, in many cases, local residents forcibly get the accused person released,” a top official said.
Sources further said that in many cases, ‘zero FIRs’ have been registered like in the sexual assault case where two tribal women were paraded naked – a video of the incident has gone viral – and one of them was allegedly gangraped. In another case of the alleged murder of two women, police have registered a ‘zero FIR’ with rape charges. But, sources said, so far, it has not been found if there was any sexual assault even as a report from the forensic department is awaited.
Another issue the police are facing is keeping the accused in jail. Sources also said there is only one permanent jail in Imphal but arrangements have been made in case there are more arrests.
“We have prepared temporary jails in different areas, in case of a high number of arrests or risk to life in moving the accused from one place to another. These jails are close to the camps of the security forces,” a senior official told News18.
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