On deaths & numbers Death here refers to the victims of the armed-opposition movement in Manipur.

We take the liberty of (further) analysing the data compiled by the 28 comrades (see Table). For want of space as well as to avoid repetitions, we have not included the data compiled by Coordination on Human Rights titled Right to Life. The report still remains one of the most authentic besides being a pioneering work related to human rights abuses and killings in Manipur, under the veil of Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) up to the early phase of the 1990s. An enigmatic aspect of interpreting numbers is that numbers cannot speak for themselves; plus, numbers can be misleading. For example, until the Tehelka exposure, none could verify existence of fake encounters in Manipur. (Here it is worth mentioning that fake encounters under the carpet of real serve the interest of the oligarchs; it is not so much about finishing insurgency in the real sense.) Thus, analysis pertaining to killing of underground activists is yet to be aided by a tested tool to exactly underpin the number of civilians tagged by the security forces as insurgents. Moreover, we are sorry for treating the departed souls as mere figures without telling the circumstances under which they died or about their lives.