NEW DELHI: In a huge blow to

Singh government and the armed forces, a Supreme Court-appointed probe committee has found 6 encounter killings in the state to be fake.

Manipur'sIbobiThe apex court had asked retired SC judge Santosh Hegde to probe these encounter killings, including shooting dead of minors on the ground that they are militants.The committee, comprising former Supreme Court judge Santosh Hegde, ex-CEC J M Lyngdoh and a senior police officer, has said in its report that the probe showed that none of the victims had any criminal records.A bench comprising Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai perused the committee's report which said none of the six cases qualify as encounters and they are fake.Guidelines by the apex court in the Naga People's Movement case , NHRC, Manipur government and Army headquarters have all been confined to papers and none of it is followed on the ground when armed forces conduct operations, the bench said.Appropriate directions will be passed on the basis of the panel's report on April 9, it said.It said the Hegde committee report is distressing and the Union government should be blamed more than the state government for the situation there.The Supreme Court on January 4 had decided to appoint the committee to hold an inquiry into the alleged fake encounter killings in Manipur.The panel was set up to probe six cases of alleged extra- judicial killings in the Northeast state where a magisterial inquiry had raised questions on genuineness of the encounters.The apex court had appointed the panel on a PIL filed by an association of the families of the alleged victims, seeking setting up of a special investigation team and direct inquiry into around 1,528 such cases.The association had alleged in its plea that over 2,000 odd extra-judicial killings have taken place in the state, but no one has been held guilty till date.It had alleged that innocent people with no criminal records have been killed by security forces and no proper investigation has been done in such cases.(Inputs from PTI)