EGI in its report released on Saturday said there are clear indications that the leadership of the state became partisan during the conflict. “It should have avoided taking sides in the ethnic conflict, but it failed to do its duty as a democratic government which should have represented the entire state”. However, the report has been termed as “false, fabricated, sponsored” in the FIR.
TFM Report
A social worker based in Manipur has filed a First Information Report (FIR) against four persons in connection with a fact finding report published by the Editors Guild of India (EGI). Three of the accused were the ones who came to Manipur for the fact finding mission between August 7 and 10. They are Seema Guha, Sanjay Kapoor, and Bharat Bhushan. The fourth person named in the FIR was EGI president.
The complaint was lodged against the four said that the report published are “false, fabricated, sponsored”.
Chief Minister N Biren Singh in a press meet also stated, “The state government has filed an FIR against the members of the Editors’ Guild, who are trying to create more clashes in Manipur.”
EGI in its report released on Saturday said there are clear indications that the leadership of the state became partisan during the conflict. “It should have avoided taking sides in the ethnic conflict, but it failed to do its duty as a democratic government which should have represented the entire state,” the report said among its several observations in a concluding summary.
The FIR said that the EGI report also captioned a photo of a burning building in Churachandpur district as a “Kuki house”. The building, however, was a Forest Department beat office that was set on fire by a mob on May 3, the day large-scale violence broke out in the district, 65 km from the state capital Imphal, following a protest by the hill-majority Kuki tribes against the valley-majority Meiteis over the Meiteis’ demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status.
An FIR filed on May 3 evening by a policeman, sub-inspector Jangkholal Kipgen, said “a large number of angry crowd” damaged the Forest Department beat office with “fire or explosive substances”.
There was an error in a photo caption in the report released on Sep 2. The same is being rectified and updated report will be uploaded on the link shortly. We regret the error that crept in at the photo editing stage
— Editors Guild of India (@IndEditorsGuild) September 3, 2023
The EGI on Saturday accepted the error in its report and said it is “being rectified and an updated report will be uploaded shortly.” “… We regret the error that crept in at the photo editing stage,” the EGI had said.