Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Monday said that his government has filed an FIR against the president and three members of the Editors Guild of India (EGI), and accused them of trying to provoke clashes in the state.
Singh told a press conference here that at a time when many have been killed and left homeless, the EGI published a “totally one-sided” report without understanding the complexity of the crisis faced by Manipur, the background and the history of the state.
The Editors’ Guild members were booked under various sections of the IPC including 153A (promoting enmity between two communities), 200 (using false declaration as true), 298 (deliberate intent to wound religious feelings), and under provisions of the Information Technology Act and Press Council Act.
The Editors Guild in a report published last week had critiqued media coverage out of Manipur, a state which has seen ethnic clashes for the last four months. It has criticised one-sided reporting by some media outlets, slammed the Internet ban as being detrimental to press reporting and claimed there were indications that the state leadership had turned partisan during the conflict period.
“The state government has filed an FIR against the members of the Editors Guild who are trying to create more clashes in the state of Manipur,” Singh told a press conference.
Besides EGI president Seema Mustafa, those who were booked included the three senior journalists — Seema Guha, Bharat Bhushan and Sanjay Kapoor — who visited the state between August 7 and 10 to study media reportage on the ethnic violence.
“They are anti-state, anti-national and anti-establishment (people) who came to pour venom. Had I known it before, would not have allowed them to enter,” the chief minister claimed.
The EGI in its report published on Saturday said it received several representations that the media in Manipur was playing a partisan role in the ongoing ethnic conflict between the Meitei and Kuki-Chin communities.
“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.
