A Supreme Court lawyer has been allegedly threatened by the militants as he was legally assisting the family, whose son was murdered allegedly by the son of Manipur CM N Biren Singh. Utsav Singh Bains, the SC lawyer, has written a letter to the Union Home Secretary to provide him with adequate security after the threat call.
Notably, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh’s son, Nongthombam Ajay, is an accused in the case for allegedly shooting the victim (Irom Roger) dead on March 20, 2011. A local court had in January sentenced him to five years imprisonment.
In the letter to the home secretary, Bains wrote that he has been receiving death threats from people liberation Army (Manipur) for providing legal assistance to Roger’s family. He further mentioned that he was engaged as a lawyer by the victim’s family to file an appeal in the Manipur High Court and a petition in the Supreme Court against the accused and had visited Imphal from March 17 to 19.
“I received calls on my WhatsApp number on 22nd March 2017 at around 3:30 am in the morning. The person who spoke in broken English with a Manipur accent said that he’s calling from PLA, Manipur and NSCIM and that I shouldn’t go ahead with the case of Irom Rogers, who was murdered by the son of the present Chief Minister N. Biren Singh. I couldn’t understand what was PLA or NSCIM during the call but later when I searched for both on google, I came to know that PLA is terror organisation operating in the North East but couldn’t find clarity as to NSCIM.” Bains wrote in the letter.
“After I consulted family and friends over this, I decided not to go to Imphal and help the family by getting a local lawyer for the appeal in the Manipur High Court. But unfortunately, over the last one month, every lawyer my colleagues and I at the Supreme Court contacted in Manipur High Court refused to be part of the case as they feared for their lives,” Bains wrote.
He was in Imphal on Wednesday as the case was pending for arguments in the Manipur High Court. He had earlier sought adequate security during his stay there.
