Manipur govt files FIR against Editors Guild members for biased report on ethnic clashes

livemint.com:

reality, meet the representatives of all communities, and then publish what you found. Otherwise, meeting some sections only and coming to a conclusion is highly condemnable. 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...".

The police have filed a case against three members of a fact-finding team of the Editors Guild of India and the press body's President in connection with a report it released on Saturday on the coverage of ethnic clashes in Manipur. As per the media reports, the police have invoked Section 66A of the IT Act even when the provision has been struck down by the Supreme Court. This section gives the power to the government to arrest and imprison an individual for "offensive and menacing" online posts.

The Police have also invoked provisions of the IPC about promoting enmity between groups. The case has been filed against--Seema Guha, Bharat Bhushan, and Sanjay Kapoor – and the president of the Editors Guild of India, Seema Mustafa. As per the Manipur government, the report is "false, fabricated and sponsored".

According to the complaint, a photo in the report falsely claimed to show smoke rising from a Kuki home when it was in fact the office of a forest official. The complaint said the report was false and was sponsored by 'Kuki militants'. The EGI said they received several representations that the media in Manipur was playing a partisan role in the ongoing ethnic conflict between the majority Meitei community and the Kuki-Chin minority.