Judicial panel finds SF-10 commandos inefficient

SHILLONG: Justice B D Agarwal (Retd), who has submitted a report on the police firing at Resubelpara-Kaldang in North Garo Hills last year that left three persons injured, has said while police personnel were found responsible for firing, the injured should have stopped their vehicles for checking.
Chief Minister Conrad Sangma received the report from Justice Agarwal on Wednesday.
On the night of March 6 last year, police fired at three persons travelling in a pick-up van on the Resubelpara-Khaldang road in North Garo Hills suspecting them to be militants when they sped away through three different police check points despite being signalled to stop.
Police had admitted that the firing was due to mistaken identity.
After the villagers — Milseng Sangma, Tubal Sangma and Janrak Sangma — were injured in the incident, there was violence as residents torched Resubelpara police station and barracks, besides seven police vehicles.
The matter was discussed in the Assembly during the Budget session last year with the members demanding judicial probe.
Speaking to The Shillong Times, Justice Agarwal refused to reveal the content of the report but said 13 witnesses were cross-examined during the probe.
Though the government notified the commission in April, the actual inquiry started at a later stage.
The difficulty the commission faced during the probe was that both the victims and the NGOs, who wanted the judicial probe, did not come forward to give statements. “We had to reach out to them and this had caused delay,” he said.
Earlier, there were magisterial and police probes into the incident.
Unlike these probes, the judicial inquiry report has not given clean chit to the police.
The commission has also not accepted the theory of the injured persons that they mistook the police for dacoits or militants and hence they did not stop their vehicle.
Justice Agarwal also said some SF-10 police commandos proved to be inefficient in handling the situation and one of them even shot at a victim above chest.
Though the state government had earlier released Rs 25,000 to each victim, the commission recommended Rs 1.5 lakh for one of the injured victims and Rs 1 lakh each to the other two.