UT News Service | IMPHAL, Aug 18: All Manipur Students’ Union (AMSU), the student body behind revelation of awarding gallantry award to a police sub-inspector involved in drug trafficking case, in a memorandum to the Governor urged her for a fair investigation into the conferring of the award to the sub-inspector involved in the drug case. The student body submitted the memorandum on Tuesday.
AMSU then appreciated the Manipur government for the prompt action of withdrawing the Chief Minister’s Police Medal for Gallantry from the sub-inspector Bhcishamayum Debson Singh immediately after they pointed out the problem.
The police sub inspector in question is currently posted at the commando unit of Imphal East district police. He was earlier arrested for trafficking drugs.
While withdrawing the award, the state Home department had also constituted an inquiry committee led by IGP (Intelligence) K Radhashyam Singh to investigate the matter. The committee was constituted to inquire into the lapses in connection with the proposal for award of Chief Minister’s Medal submitted by SP Imphal East. However, AMSU said that the inquiry should not be just an eye-wash.
AMSU saw more to this episode than just a clerical mistake of inspector E Roshan Singh, reader to Imphal East SP who has also been placed under suspension from his service based on preliminary findings.
There are reliable reports of other police personnel listed in the Chief Minister’s Trophy for Anti-Drug Campaign and Chief Minister’s Trophy for Community Service Award who were also involved in drug haul cases and shielding off drug kingpins, AMSU said in the memorandum. They were even suspended from service and subsequently reinstated, AMSU also said. “The present inquiry should examine this aspect of how the terminated / suspended police personnel were reinstated into service and rise up to get gallantry awards,” the memorandum added.
It then said that this is not the first time that such a “goof-up” took place in the gallantry award issue. “In the recent past many police personnel involved in fake encounters were conferred gallantry awards on the occasion of Republic Day and Independence Day”, the student body alleged. “Therefore, there is a need for transparency in the process of recommendation and selection of all the gallantry awardees and to place their dossier/citations in the public domain”, the memorandum stated.
Then, AMSU urged the Governor to intervene by ensuring that the mandate of the inquiry is wide enough to encompass the three critical issues/questions and it should be headed by a person no less than a retired Judge of the high court.
NNN
