India’s SC orders probe into extrajudicial killings in Manipur

India's Supreme Court on Friday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to open an investigation into the alleged extrajudicial killings by the Indian Army, Assam Rifles and police in the insurgency-hit state of Manipur.

The court's bench of Justices M.B. Lokur and U.U. Lalit asked the CBI director to appoint a team of officers to conduct the probe into the alleged killings.

The court was hearing a plea seeking probe and compensation in the 1,528 cases involving alleged extrajudicial killings from 2000 to 2012 by security forces and police.

On April 20, the army had suggested before the apex court that FIRs could not be registered against it for carrying out operations in India-held Kashmir and insurgency-hit Manipur, while alleging local bias in judicial inquiries conducted against it in these regions, which had tarnished its image.

"In every military operation, the army cannot be disbelieved. Every judicial inquiry cannot be against the army. The alleged extrajudicial killing cases in Manipur are not cases of massacre, rather these are cases of military operations," the central government had told the court.

The bench had also pulled up the Manipur government for not taking action on such alleged fake encounters by armed forces and asked was it not supposed to do anything.

The army had told the court that the judicial probes conducted into alleged extrajudicial killing charges were "biased" and slanted against them due to local factors.

It had alleged that the district judges, who were locals, had conducted the judicial inquiries into the alleged killings and local factors came in the way of the probe reports which went against the armed forces.

The court was earlier told that there were 265 cases of deaths which had to be examined and there were various reports of the commission of inquiry in which serious allegations had been levelled against armed forces personnel.