Manipur government denies authenticity of voice clips allegedly incriminating Chief Minister Biren Singh in ethnic conflict. File
| Photo Credit: ANI
Hours after a news website reported a story about voice clips, allegedly of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh admitting to complicity in the ethnic conflict, being submitted as evidence to the Inquiry Commission constituted by the Centre, the Manipur government issued a statement doubling down on its claim that the clippings were “doctored”.
Responding to the news report by The Wire, the Manipur government, in a press release issued by the Department of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), said, “State Government views such acts of spreading misinformation/disinformation through such doctored clips as anti-national activities…”
“Further, anybody without exception shall be prosecuted under relevant provisions of laws of the land, if found involved in spreading such unfounded and baseless contents through any media or posting and sharing of such contents, which will escalate law and order issues in the State and derail the efforts put so far toward bring normalcy and peace in the State,” the government press release added.
The audio clips, released a few weeks ago on social media, were purported to be that of Mr. Singh speaking Meiteilon. According to translations released by several Kuki-Zo CSOs, the clippings were of him allegedly “boasting in a closed-door meeting with his clique that he initiated the war against the Kuki-Zo people to ‘save Meitei civilization’”.
The Manipur government further said that law and order in the State had improved in the last three to four months “except for some very low-scale sporadic incidents”, adding that “there is no large-scale confrontation”.
In June, violence and arson had spread to Jiribam district, which had been largely peaceful throughout the conflict.
The news report published on Monday said that these clippings had been submitted as evidence to the Ministry of Home Affairs-constituted Commission of Inquiry to probe the Manipur violence. It had added that an affidavit was submitted along with it outlining how, when, where and under what circumstances the recording was made.
The news website had also gone on to report contents of the voice clips after verifying and translating it.
Right after the clips had gone viral on social media initially, the DIPR had issued a statement claiming that the clip had been doctored and that the Manipur Police had launched an investigation into it.
In Monday’s statement, the Manipur government said an FIR had already been registered to probe the origin of the allegedly doctored clip.
Describing the reporting on the clips by the news website as “anti-national”, the government said it was doing so because the reports had the “likelihood of inciting hatred and mistrust amongst communities thereby, trying deliberately to disturb peaceful co-existence of communities to escalate the current law and order issues in the State more particularly to derail the peace initiatives being started by both State and Central governments”.
The State government also “clarified” that all instances of rocket and bomb explosions throughout the conflict were being investigated after registering FIRs appropriately by various agencies including the NIA. So far the security agencies “have been able to control such incidents to a great extent” the government claimed.
One of the news reports by the website also said that the clippings contained proof of the CM allegedly asking State forces to use bombs in Kuki-Zo dominated areas despite being pulled up by Home Minister Amit Shah for it.
The Manipur government asked the public to “not rely” on such unfounded contents circulating in social media and news reports and also to refrain from involvement in spreading such false and fabricated information through any media”.
