Three frames were missing from the sequence of pictures showing the final moments of Chungkham Sanjit, a 23-year-old former militant killed in the heart of Imphal a month ago, allegedly by Manipur Police commandos. But these three pictures have now appeared in a poster only in Sanjit’s neighbourhood Khurai in Imphal East — they are close shots of his body, so close that it has led to talk that the release of the pictures was “an insider’s job”.

Sanjit’s relatives maintain the pictures were delivered in a CD by some unidentified men but that has not ended talk on who took the pictures and how. One version doing the rounds is that the commandos, hoping that coverage of the killing would help them win gallantry awards, granted photographers access. The other version says some “insiders”, who wanted to make public the “extra-judicial” killing, released these pictures.

The truth probably lies somewhere in between. But it has not escaped notice at the highest levels of the Manipur government. A state cabinet minister, who did not wish to be named, said the police top brass have been told to look into this aspect as well.

Inquiries and official records reveal that Sanjit who served eight years in the People’s Liberation Army — the PLA insurgents have been battling the state for over four decades — quit the underground in 2007 after he fractured his shoulder while he was with the PLA 253 Battalion on the Indo-Myanmar border. He enrolled as a health assistant in an Imphal polyclinic in a bid to return to the mainstream. He also began painting houses and was on the lookout for contracts.

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