Mokokchung, 4 September (MTNews): The Manipur Police have filed a case against three members of a fact-finding team from the Editors Guild of India (EGI), including the EGI president, in connection with a report they released on Saturday regarding the media coverage of the ethnic conflict in Manipur. An earlier version of the FIR invoked Section 66A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015.
The case has been filed against the authors of the report – Seema Guha, Bharat Bhushan, and Sanjay Kapoor – as well as the president of the Editors Guild of India, Seema Mustafa.
“An FIR has been filed against the members of the Editors’ Guild (acting on a complaint) who are allegedly trying to incite further clashes in the state of Manipur,” Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said on Monday during a press briefing in Imphal.
“I also gave a warning to the members of the Editors Guild: if you wish to take action, please visit the site, observe the ground reality, and meet with representatives of all communities before publishing your findings,” Singh emphasized during the press conference. He further criticized the team for purportedly failing to reach out to all the affected sections and communities in the state.
The Manipur chief minister also questioned the formation of the fact-finding committee and their authorization.
Earlier, the All Manipur Working Journalists Union (AMWJU) and the Editors Guild Manipur (EGM) had jointly issued a rebuttal press release on 3 September that “strongly denied the Editors Guild of India’s motivated allegation based on hearsay.”
The FIR is based on the complaint filed by one Ngangom Sarat, a “social worker” who lives in Imphal West, and refers to one photo caption in the report. The photo caption, the complaint said, said that smoke was rising from a Kuki home – but it was in fact the home of a forest official. Based on this, the complainant decided that the report is false in entirety and “sponsored by Kuki militants.”
The Editors Guild had recognized the error in the caption and said on X (formerly Twitter), “We regret the error that crept in at the photo editing stage.”
Meanwhile, the Press Council of India strongly condemned the filing of the FIR and demanded the immediate withdrawal of the FIR against EGI President and the three members. The PCI commended the Editors Guild for dispatching a fact-finding team to investigate the ground situation and information that may be suppressed.
“This is a strong-arm tactic by the state government, amounting to intimidation of the country’s apex media body,” the PCI declared.
“At a time when violence-plagued Manipur requires the utmost attention from the government, such actions by the state government will only exacerbate the situation and be perceived as a deliberate attempt to suppress the truth. This is a case of shooting the messenger rather than taking measures to restore peace in the state,” the PCI added.
The Editors Guild of India in a fact-finding report issued on Saturday has said that during the ethnic violence, “Journalists of Manipur wrote one-sided reports” and that the media based out of Imphal, the report said, had “seemingly transformed into Meitei media.”
In addition to being biased, the report alleged that these media outlets vilified the security forces, particularly the Assam Rifles, and engaged in “constant propaganda” against them.
Regarding the role of Meira Paibis, the EGI report found that they had become “cheerleaders of the violent mobs attacking Kuki homes” since the latest ethnic clashes began in Manipur. “Video clips where Meira Paibis have urged the youth to rape and molest Kuki women have surfaced,” the EGI noted.
To this, the All Manipur Working Journalists Union (AMWJU) and the Editors Guild Manipur (EGM) said the “broad brush against Meira Paibis is again not true and very unfair.”
“Though there may have been some who had shown cruelty, it cannot be generalized. It has to be noted these local women were also the ones who rescued the two women paraded naked, clothed them and escorted them to a nearby security post,” they claimed.