The Manipur government presented a note in the Supreme Court on August 7 that says only one case of rape and murder has been registered in the state until July 31 since the unrest began on May 3.
Among the 6523 First Information Reports filed in the state in the three months of the ethnic violence (till July 31), the state government's note shows that there has been only one case of rape and murder. Along with that, three cases of rape and gang rape, six cases of assaulting women with the intent of outraging her modesty and 72 cases are registered for murder.
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On the other hand, the cases registered for arson, looting and property damage are quite high, reportedly. The number of registered cases of arson is 4454, cases of looting are 4148 and the number for damage to house properties is 4694 while 584 cases were registered for the damage to public properties.
According to a report by The Hindu, 46 cases were registered for the crime of “destruction of places of religious worship”.
100 cases have been registered for causing grievous hurt says the note, reportedly.
The report suggests that the note presented by the state government was divided into the three months showing the occurrence of crimes in Manipur and it revealed that May had the highest number of deaths which was 107 while June saw 27 deaths and in July only 18 people died. The note also said that during the three months, 689 people were reported for injury.
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According to the note, over the time frame of May 3 to July 31, 4,766 FIRs in total were initially filed in the police station with original jurisdiction as standard FIRs. But there were 11,414 FIRs which were recorded as having zero FIRs initially and 10,382 of these zero FIRs were transferred to the police station within the relevant jurisdiction.
Reportedly the said note also suggests that there were many incidents which had multiple zero FIRs and the state was clubbing them as one. Considering everything, it stated that there were 6,523 FIRs overall as of July 31.
The petitioners brought up the topic of "looting" of weapons and ammunition throughout the hearing. Gopal Sankaranarayanan, urged the court to inquire of the State government regarding what steps had been taken to safeguard the "existing arms in the armoury."
According to the State's Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, the theft of weapons is "being investigated". Mehta further requested to not make it worse.
For a petitioner, attorney Nizam Pasha urged the apex court to appoint special public prosecutors from outside Manipur to handle the cases and to install cameras in mortuaries so that family members could identify unclaimed bodies.
