Asian Centre for Human Rights

I am writing to seek the intervention of the National Human Rights Commission against the torture of eight persons, including three women by the 17th Assam Rifles at Lilong Haoreibi Mayai Leikai, Imphal, Manipur.

The 17th Assam Rifles troops first broke into the house of one Md Nashir Ahmed, 21 in the early morning of 26 July 2003 and beat him severely. They accused him of possessing a gun and demanded that he produce it. When Nashir Ahmed denied that he had any gun, he was tortured further.

The personnel then turned on his ailing brother, Abdul Wahid. And when his mother and sister protested, they were thrashed as well.

Thereafter, Nashir Ahmed was dragged behind one of the security vehicles with a rope around his neck upto the house of one Farojuddin, where the security personnel repeated the same torture with Farojuddin and his mother.

The security personnel then went to a third house, belonging to one Tarik Ali, a lecturer in physical education at Lilong Haoreibi College, and asked for his son, Samin. Tarik Ali and his other two sons, Taslin Zaded and Ibomcha were beaten when they replied they did not know Samin's whereabouts.

According to Nashir Ahmed, who has been hospitalised at Regional Institute of Medical Science, he was thereafter taken to the banks of the Nambul river and told to start running, but he refused. In the meantime, the womenfolk of the locality had been roused, and came to the spot chasing after them. At that the security personnel left the spot hastily.

Mr Nasir Ahemd identified that Ayub Khan (23) of Chandrakhong who had recently joined the army was among the Assam Rifles personnel who tortured him brutally.

He also said that Ayub Khan used to be a close friend of his. He further informed that he had allowed Ayub Khan to mortgage his gold ring some three years back to help him out of his financial woes. However relations between the two began to turn sour when Nasir started demanding back his gold ring and it resulted in some heated arguments between the two. About five months back, Ayub Khan after joining the AR had also come with a team of AR personnel to Nasir's residence looking for him.

This appears to be a case of gross mis-use of powers by the Assam Rifles personnel and the army.

I shall be grateful if the NHRC could kindly intervene by taking the following measures:

1. Direct the Ministry of Home Affairs to conduct a full inquiry into the torture of the above persons and submit the report including the medical reports about the treatment of the victims at the RIMS hospital to the NHRC;

2. Direct the Ministry of Home Affairs to take exemplary disciplinary action against the guilty Assam Rifles personnel;

3. Direct the Ministry of Defence to suspend Ayub Khan and take necessary disciplinary actions;

4. Direct the Ministry of Home Affairs to pay compensation of Rs 50,000 to each of the victims and the same is recovered from the concerned Assam Rifles personnel; and

5. Take any other measure that the NHRC deems fit.

Looking forward to your kind intervention.

With kind regards,

Yours sincerely

Suhas Chakma
Director