FIR filed against Editors Guild members against biased reporting in Manipur: CM
The Editors Guild recently claimed that the media’s reports on the ethnic violence in Manipur were one-sided and accused the state leadership of being partisan
Manipur chief Minister N Biren Singh said that his government has filed a first information report (FIR) against four members of the Editors Guild of India (EGI) over a report that they had published on the ethnic clashes in the state.
Addressing media persons, CM Singh confirmed that the FIR was filed for allegedly trying to “create more clashes in the state.”
Singh said that the fact-finding committee members of the EGI did not meet representatives from both communities and came to an incorrect conclusion.
The FIR was filed at the Imphal police station on the complaint of a social worker.
The complainant listed different parts of the report, which he said were false and fabricated, a copy of which HT has seen.
The FIR said the EGI report showed a photograph of a burnt building captioning that it was a Kuki house which was burnt on May 5.
Also Read: 100 traumatised among 12,694 displaced children in Manipur: Govt data
“The true fact of the case is that the building is the office of a forest beat officer at Mata Mualtam Village, Churachandpur,” the FIR said.
The EGI had clarified on Sunday that there was an error in a photo caption in the report released on September 2.
“We regret the error that crept in at the photo editing stage,” EGI said on X (formerly Twitter).
The complainant said the report was false, fabricated and sponsored on different accounts.
According to EGI, they had set up a three-member committee that visited Manipur from August 7 to 10 after receiving representations that the media was playing a partisan role in the ethnic conflict between the majoritarian Meitei community and Kuki-Chin minority.
EGI said they had also received a complaint from the Army’s 3rd Corp headquarters on July 12, 2023 citing instances where the Manipur media may be “playing a major role in arousing passion.”
EGI said that while the committee’s mandate was not to examine the cause of the ethnic clashes, it would be difficult to understand the media’s behaviour without getting into the social and political context within which the violence took place.
At least 160 have died and over 50,000 were displaced in the clashes that started on May 3 in Churachandpur and quickly spread to other parts of the state.
The EGI’s report titled -- Report on the fact-finding mission on media’s reportage of the ethnic violence in Manipur, said chief minister Singh had circumvented rules and facilitated collective anger of the Meitei community towards the Kukis through seemingly partisan statements and policy decisions.
The report said the state leadership had labelled the entire community of Kuki-Zo tribals as “foreigners and illegal immigrants” without any reliable data or evidence.
It also said that the government had declared parts of hills as reserved and protected without following the due procedure as laid down in the Hills Area Committee Act of 1972.
“All land ownership documents within these areas were cancelled and a drive to evict them started in December 2022,”the report said.
Tribal groups such as Indigenous Tribal leaders Forum (ITLF), an umbrella groups of tribal bodies, have in recent months accused Singh of targeting Kuki in hill areas by holding the anti-encroachment drive in the hill where the majority of Kukis reside.
The complainant in the FIR said that the areas were declared reserve forest or protected before 1990.
The committee said in their report that media houses in Manipur wrote one-sided reports and listed different instances when fake news was published by local media to spread disinformation.
Terming the internet ban as a mistake, EGI said that such as ban only feeds rumours and blocks the view of the disadvantaged community, as has clearly happened in Manipur.
They also said that there were “clear indications” that the leadership of the state became partisan during the conflict “when it should have avoided taking sides.
(HT has contacted EGI for a response. The copy will be updated when EGI issues a comment on the development)