17 years since their naked protest, ‘Mothers of Manipur’ say fight not over yet

Simrin Sirur
Contd from previous issue
Now, however, she has become cautious on account of the pandemic and her illness.
“Still, if someone needs me, I am there, at whatever cost,” she told ThePrint. Last year, she said, she dropped everything when her neighbour was charged with sedition and held under the draconian Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for allegedly publishing an op-ed about militancy in the State. She waited outside the police station till he was released, she said.
Since the 2004 protest, Ima Nganbi added, she has been arrested six to seven times. Her family, she said, has faced random checks and harassment from police and security personnel over the years.   “A few years ago, Army officers came to my home and one of them was wearing a black mask and pointed at my son. He was so afraid, he urinated. When things like this happen, your mind goes to whether or not you will see that family member alive again,” she said.
Ima Gyaneshwori has similar stories. When a car was once stopped and found to have a gun, her husband was blamed for the incident, despite no proof linking him to the crime, she said. The Army, she added, showed up at the shop they own, and tried to intimidate them.
“I stood in front of him (my husband) with my arms stretched out. I argued with them and they eventually left. But things like this have happened a lot,” she said.
There are a few lessons to learn as newer generations shape the civil rights movements in Manipur, Ima Gyaneshwori said. “Always stay true to who you are. Don’t lose your empathy. Work genuinely. Listen to the wisdom of your elders. Change can come from that.”
‘Still no justice’
The situation in Manipur is described as decidedly better now, but no action has been taken so far against Manorama’s suspected killers. Soon after Manorama’s murder, the Manipur High Court ordered a judicial inquiry into the circumstances of her death and constituted the Manorama Death Inquiry Commission in 2004, led by the late C Upendra Singh, a retired District and Sessions Judge.
The contents of the report, submitted in November 2004, were only released to the public in 2014. Singh called the case “one of the most shocking” custodial deaths in Manipur, and said the bullets to her vagina “expose not only the barbaric attitude but also their (the Assam Rifles’) attempt to fabricate false evidence with a view to cover up the offence committed by them”.
While the Assam Rifles labelled Manorama an insurgent who was shot while trying to flee custody, their claim has been widely questioned—they said they shot Manorama in the legs, but no bullet was found in her legs. The commission cited her autopsy to claim she had also been shot from the front—bringing the “chase” account into question.
In 2009, a collective called the Extra Judicial Execution Victim Families Association Manipur was formed that subsequently identified 1,528 people who had been murdered or had gone missing between 1979 and 2012 in similar circumstances. In 2017, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to investigate the cases, but progress has been slow: Only 39 FIRs and 13 charge sheets have been filed so far.
In 2015, on the Supreme Court’s direction, the Union Government paid Manorama’s family Rs 10 lakh in compensation. Two years later, the Court questioned the Army (which controls the Assam Rifles operations) over what was described as its silence on allegations of rape and murder against its personnel. According to an April 2017 report published by The Hindu, the Army told the Court that an internal inquiry had revealed some “violations of laid-down procedure” in the Manorama case. However, the Army counsel reportedly told the Court that the operation involving Manorama was based on reliable intelligence, and said the force was not averse to an inquiry by a high-ranking officer.
In October 2018, The Week reported that the Army had started a court of inquiry into the case whose proceedings were yet to begin. ThePrint reached an Assam Rifles representative in charge of operations and media with queries about the status of the internal inquiry—if any—and about the alleged visits to the imas by security personnel, but he declined to comment. The Print