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 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.
In New Delhi, the Press Club of India on Monday condemned the registration of the FIR against Editors Guild of India members.
“It is a case of shooting the messenger rather than taking measures to restore peace in the state. We demand that the FIR against Editors Guild of India (EGI) president Seema Mustafa and the three members be withdrawn immediately,” the Press Club of India (PCI) said in a statement here.
The PCI claimed that the Manipur police invoked Section 66A of the Information and Technology Act even though the provision has been struck down by the Supreme Court.
“This is a strong-arm tactic by the state government which amounts to intimidation of the apex media body of the country,” it said.
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