Pay 5 lakh for killing youth: SC to Assam Rifles

NEW DELHI: At a time when the armed forces and the Manipur police are facing Supreme Court ordered CBI probe into alleged extra-judicial killings of over 1,500 people in Manipur during 2002-2012, the SC on Wednesday asked the Army’s Assam Rifles to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to a woman whose son was found to have been killed by its personnel in 2009.
Additional solicitor general Vikramjit Banerjee told an SC bench that the Manipur HC had ordered payment of compensation even as investigation was yet to be completed. But the bench said there was no error in the decision as the HC found that Oinam Ongbi Yaimabi Leima was arrested by Assam Rifles on October 22, 2009, and his death couldn’t be termed as part of the encounter killing on October 30.
On July 14, 2017, the SC had directed the CBI to investigate alleged extra-judicial killings of 1,528 people by the Army, Assam Rifles and Manipur police between 2000 and 2012.