The Supreme Court on Friday, July 24, proposed setting up special courts to conduct day-to-day trials in criminal cases arising from the 2023 ethnic violence in Manipur. It also directed probe agencies to expeditiously complete pending investigations and ensure that victims receive copies of chargesheets.The lawyers will have to be provided the chargesheets within one week of legal aid counsel contacting them, the court said. More than 200 people have been killed, several hundred injured and thousands displaced since ethnic violence first broke out in Manipur on May 3, 2023, when a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised in the hill districts to protest against the majority Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.The SIT is probing 3,020 cases across eight districts. It reported that chargesheets have been filed in 301 cases and trials commenced in 10. The court noted that around 2,924 witnesses have been cited across the cases by the state SIT. The CBI also highlighted several challenges affecting the investigations, including displacement of witnesses, lack of cooperation due to mistrust, language barriers and disruption in collecting digital evidence because of prolonged internet suspension during the violence, the bench noted. While acknowledging these practical difficulties, the bench said that the pending investigations must nevertheless be completed within a reasonable time