New Delhi: In a startling turn of events, a lieutenant colonel of the army’s 3 Corps Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (CISU) – posted in Manipur – has told an internal court of inquiry that a major of the same unit destroyed the original official documents related to the recovery of a huge cache of unaccounted arms and ammunition from inside the unit premises in July 2018.
Lt. Col. R.P. Nanda said this as a witness in the ongoing trial against another Lt. colonel, Dharamvir Singh, from whom he took over as the commanding officer of the 3 CISU unit in Manipur’s M-Sector in Imphal. The trial is ongoing at Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh where Lt. Col. Singh is currently posted.
The trial is being conducted on the basis of a letter written by Lt. Col. Nanda on July 2, 2018, to the commanding officer (CO) of the unit, who operates from the 3 Corps headquarters in Dimapur (Nagaland). He alleged in his letter that the cache of arms was found in the possession of his predecessor, Lt. Col. Singh, on July 1, 2018, inside M-Sector in Imphal.
However, on the morning of July 1, 2018, Lt. Col. Singh was reportedly “illegally” arrested in the presence of Lt. Col. Nanda and Major B.S. Rathore – the officer who is said to have torn the original official document regarding the recovery of arms.
Lt. Col. Singh was thereafter taken to Dimapur. It meant that the said arms and ammunition were recovered in the absence of Lt. Col. Singh.
Though Lt. Col. Nanda’s letter – mentioning the serious allegation of keeping arms illegally inside a high-security army installation since 2016 – was received by the CO in Dimapur on July 2, 2018, Lt. Col. Singh told the court of inquiry that he was neither given any information about the charge nor asked for an explanation – as is the norm in the army. Instead, he was asked to resume normal duty at Dimapur.
Significantly, Lt. Col. Singh, otherwise a decorated army officer, has alleged that he was being “framed and victimised by a set of rogue officers” of the unit for writing a letter to the CO on September 9, 2016, informing him about the “involvement” of fellow officers in the extrajudicial killing of a student, Th. Satish, along with four other Manipuri youth and “commission of extortion by few rogue officers, including the Jorhat robbery.”
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The Jorhat robbery case had created a sensation in Assam in December 2011. The district police, following an investigation, said that 15 personnel from the 3 Corps of Dimapur were involved in an armed robbery inside the house of one Surajit Gogoi in Rowriah area of Jorhat. Shockingly, they were reportedly in their uniform.
Lt. Col. Singh’s allegation of extrajudicial killings is noteworthy considering the Supreme Court is hearing a PIL seeking a probe into 1,528 cases of such suspected killings by security forces in Manipur. So far, the court has sought an investigation into 41 cases by a special team of the Central Bureau of Investigation.
On July 3, 2018, on not being able to establish any contact with her husband or get any information about his whereabouts, Lt. Col. Singh’s wife, Ranju Singh, filed an FIR in an Imphal police station. She also held a press meet in Imphal after slipping out of her husband’s official quarters inside M-Sector to state the same, besides filing a writ petition in the Manipur high court seeking his whereabouts.
On the HC’s direction, Lt. Col. Singh was produced in court and the army said he was not arrested but taken to Dimapur to resume his duty.
However, Lt. Col. Singh was soon transferred to Pasighat and asked to face an internal inquiry on the basis of Lt. Col. Nanda’s letter to the CO in 2018. Though Lt. Col. Singh got an interim stay on that order from the Manipur high court, the Supreme Court vacated it in February 2019 directing the officer to face trial.
In April, Lt. Col. Singh filed another petition in the Manipur HC seeking a directive to the state government to register an FIR regarding the recovery of the huge cache of arms and ammunition from M-Sector. He also sought a court-monitored probe to ascertain how the arms remained secretly stored for about two years inside the unit before being discovered by Lt. Col. Nanda, and asked the court to prosecute those responsible for it.
Significantly, Nanda’s letter had also alleged that a cadre of the armed group United National Liberation Front (UNLF) named Japan and a civilian named Naoba were also residing in the barracks for about six months.
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The HC, thereafter, asked the state government to respond to it. Though it is mandatory under the Arms Act, 1959, to file an FIR at the nearest police station after the recovery of unaccounted arms and ammunition, and thereafter hand over the cache to the police without delay, the state government contended that it was an internal matter of the army and it would rather stay away from it.
Lawyer Shreeji Bhavsar
Notably, Lt. Col. Nanda’s confession to the internal inquiry proceedings, made on March 4, 2019, about the original documents being destroyed by Major Rathore on the same day of its recovery – July 1, 2018 – brings to fore Lt. Col. Singh’s allegations that some ‘rogue officers’ had tried to frame him.
What is also to be underlined is that Lt. Col. Nanda admitted at the trial that he wrote the letter to the CO in July 2018 against Lt. Col. Singh on the directions of Brigadier Administrative and Brigadier Intelligence of 3 Corps.
On July 8, Lt. Col. Singh’s lawyer, Shreeji Bhavsar, appearing before the Manipur HC, presented the confession of Lt. Col. Nanda in the summary of evidence proceedings of the trial. He argued that Lt. Col. Singh was framed and victimised just because he wrote the letter in 2016 to the CO informing him about some rogue officers’ “illegal acts”.
Among other questions, Bhavsar also raised the point that if such a letter about the recovery of arms and ammunition was received by the CO, why then was it not mentioned in the court when Lt. Col. Singh was produced before it.
Speaking to The Wire, Bhavsar said, “Destruction of official documents regarding recovery of illegal arms and ammunition by an officer of the army is a serious criminal offence. Few officers in 3 Corps shall not try to cover up the crime and order inquiry at the highest level to unearth the larger conspiracy in which Lt. Col. Dharamvir Singh has been framed. We have full faith in the institution of the army and the honourable high court of Manipur that they will deal with the offenders with an iron hand and will bring justice to the honest and upright officer.”
The high court has adjourned the case till August 28 for further arguments and for the maintainability of Lt. Col. Singh’s petition.