Assam's 1994 fake encounter case settles with compensation for kin victims

Thirty years after five youths were killed in an alleged fake encounter in Assam, their family members have been given a compensation of Rs 20 lakh each on court's direction, bringing to a close a long legal battle.

Seven accused Army personnel, including a Major General and two Colonels, escaped from any punishment even though a military court initially and a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry found they were involved in the alleged crime.

A review of the case by Court Martial authorities later took some further evidence and announced that the army personnel were "not guilty".

All these army personnel are retired now.

Prabin Sonowal, Akhil Sonowal, Debajit Biswas, Pradip Dutta and Bhupen Moran were picked up by a team of army personnel of the 18th Punjab Regiment on February 17 and 19, 1994 from their homes or offices in Assam's Tinsukia district following the killing of a tea garden manager by the banned insurgent group ULFA a few days earlier.

On February 23, 1994, the bodies of the five youths were handed over to the local police station where the army claimed they were killed in an "encounter".

"It was not an encounter but a fake encounter as all the youths were innocent and had no connection with ULFA. As per the post-mortem report, the victims were found with their eyes gauged out, nails removed and knees broken. Such things cannot happen in an actual encounter," said the then-student leader Jagadish Bhuyan, who filed a habeas corpus in the case in 1994 in Gauhati high court.

After an inquiry, the CBI filed a change sheet in a local court in Guwahati in 2002 saying the agency had arrived at its conclusion that it is "disbelievable that the injuries that were found on the deceased persons were caused in any encounter".

Accordingly, the CBI held that five army personnel -- the then Captain RK Shivrain (later colonel), JCOs and NCOs Dalip Singh, Palwinder Singh, Shivender Singh and Jagdev Singh -- were "responsible for the killing" of the five persons as they "had actually opened fire on them" and therefore, liable to be prosecuted for murder charges.

The CBI report dated February 6, 2002 also arrived at its conclusion that two other army personnel namely Colonel AK Lal (later major general) and major Thomas Mathew (later colonel) were liable to be prosecuted under murder charges because Lal had allegedly planned the entire operation and Mathew was allegedly leading the party and had "ordered the firing".

The CBI also requested the Special Judicial Magistrate, Kamrup, Guwahati, to forward the charge sheet to the army authorities to try the accused persons in a Court Martial proceeding according to the Army Act of 1950.

On October 13, 2018, a military court in Dinjan (Dibrugarh) after the Court Martial proceeding found that the accused were guilty of murder of the five youths.

As there is a requirement under the Army Act of 1950 to have the conclusion of the Court Martial to be confirmed by the competent authority, the case was placed before the army competent authority.

The army competent authority by its order on November 5, 2019 sent the matter back to the Court Martial authorities for a revision of their earlier decision.

And in the revision, the Court Martial authorities took some further evidence and accordingly by an order on March 1, 2020 announced that the army personnel were "not guilty".

It was again confirmed by the army competent authority on November 15, 2020.

"Despite our appeal, the Court Martial order was not given to the families of the victims. We don't know how the initial Court Martial order was reversed and the CBI inquiry report was ignored," Bhuyan, who is now the general secretary of the Assam Jatiya Parishad, a regional political party, told PTI over phone.

The victims' families again moved the high court.

A bench of justices Achintya Malla Bujor Barua and Robin Phukan in an order on March 3, 2023 directed the central government to pay a compensation of Rs 20 lakh each to the next of kin of the victims.

This amount was recently credited to the accounts of the next of kin on July 31.

Bhuyan said it was only a "partial closure" of a fake encounter case as the accused escaped any punishment in a case which shocked whole Assam in 1990s.

"At least some action like curtailment of pension should have been taken by the army authorities against the accused. It set a bad precedent despite there were irrefutable evidence against the accused," he said.

Deepak Dutta, brother of victim Pradip Dutta, told PTI that it was a very tragic incident of the time and the sad part is that the accused did not get any punishment.

"Unfortunately, the case was settled with monetary compensation," Dutta, a retired manager of Punjab National Bank, said.

He said Pradip was married less than a month before he was picked up by the Army personnel midnight while he was asleep.

Rupa Sonowal, sister-in-law of another victim Akhil Sonowal, said the families did not get justice, just a compensation.

"We did not get justice as the accused were not punished. We don't know why army authorities did not punish the guilty. Money is not everything. We are not satisfied," she told PTI.