By Y.P. Rajesh

NONGPOK SEKMAI, India, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Maibam Sharat was second in a line of six friends, walking past a security post with his hands up in the air as ordered by Indian troops, when he says a soldier stepped out of an armoured car and opened fire.

He doesn't know how long the shooting lasted but when it stopped he found his friend Ranbir, who was walking in front of him, bleeding from the stomach.

The troops, there to fight separatist militants in India's remote northeastern state of Manipur, moved him to their camp instead of getting medical help.

When they gave in to pressure from locals and took him to hospital, it was four hours too late -- the farmer had taken seven bullets and lost too much blood to make it.

"Maybe they were just venting their frustration and anger after their colleagues close by had come under attack from militants earlier in the evening," said Sharat, a driver from the hamlet of Nongpok Semai.

Human rights groups and political parties say Ranbir's killing was the latest in a long list of abuses by the military in insurgency-torn Manipur, abuses committed under the protection of a draconian federal anti-terror law.

That law, the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA, gives soldiers virtual immunity from prosecution, and has taken centre stage as the state of 2.6 million people begins voting this week in a three-stage poll to elect a new legislature.

Most parties seem to agree that the law, which only applies to parts of India's northeast and to Kashmir in the northwest, should either be repealed or drastically changed.

PROTECTORS OR PREDATORS?

"If we come to power, we will ensure AFSPA is repealed in the very first session of the new legislature," said Sovakiran Singh, legislator from the Heirok constituency to which Nongpok Sekmai belongs.

In theory New Delhi could overrule the state government and reimpose the law. But Singh hopes it will respond to the pressure from Manipur, where 20,000 people have died in a separatist rebellion since the 1960s.

AFSPA gives troops sweeping powers to search, arrest and kill suspected militants even when they face no imminent threat. Troops can only be prosecuted with central government permission, -- and that rarely comes.

The 1958 law was introduced to combat armed separatist militancy in northeast India, and the army says it offers them vital protection from politically motivated charges.

Rights groups say the powers it grants have fostered a climate where security forces commit rights abuses with impunity, including torture, rape and murder. That, they say, has only fuelled more anger and created more insurgents.

"AFSPA is the product of the gross paranoia of the state," said Pradip Phanjoubam, editor of the Imphal Free Press daily.

A top official of the Border Security Force, whose men were involved in the Nongpok Sekmai shooting, said the soldiers were retaliating against fire from militants.

But hardly anyone in the hamlet believes him.

Manipur is one of India's most troubled regions, 1,500 miles (2,400 km) from New Delhi but far from the nation's consciousness. Soldiers are everywhere.

The state has gone up in flames several times in the last five years when soldiers were accused of killing innocents and people took to the streets in anger.

Despite the protests, extra-judicial killings saw a "slight increase" last year, with 18 documented cases, says Babloo Loitongbam, director of Manipur's Human Rights Alert.

Phanjoubam and Loitongbam say New Delhi should be pushing for a political not a military solution to the insurgency in Manipur, to bring development to one of India's most backward states.

But whether political parties here will be able to create genuine pressure for change remains to be seen.

India's ruling Congress party, which has also been in power in Manipur since 2002, has dilly-dallied on AFSPA.

Party chief Sonia Gandhi told Manipuris this week that New Delhi was "seriously and genuinely" looking into the report of an expert panel which is said to have recommended changes to the law 18 months ago. But many Manipuris remain sceptical of change.

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