Days after the registration of an FIR by Manipur police against the fact-finding team of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the human rights network has called for the withdrawal of the F.I.R.
In a statement, PUCL said that the Fact-Finding team addressed a press meeting in Imphal at the conclusion of a Fact-Finding tour in Manipur, in which they expressed their views that the 3rd May, 2003 riots which broke out in Imphal, and surrounding areas was `state sponsored violence’.
Addressing the press conference, National Women’s movement, Ms. Annie Raja and Nisha Siddhu, General Secretary and National Secretary of National Federation of Indian Women (NFIW) and advocate Deeksha Dwivedi had also been prosecuted for describing the protest of the Meira Paibis (women belonging to the majority Meitei Hindu community) against the resignation of Manipur CM, N. Biren Singh as “Stage managed drama”.
The 3-member team is also reported to have concluded that during their visit to Imphal and other areas, they met many sections of people, and that “people on both sides want peace to return and the State Government should put in sincere efforts to bring normalcy”.
“What is shocking is that despite the call for peace and harmony to be restored, the Imphal Police have invoked very serious criminal offences against the three women leaders. These include offences under sections 121- A (conspiring to commit offences of waging war against India or against the state), 124A (sedition), 153/153-A/ 153-B (provocation with intention to cause riot, promoting enmity between different groups and imputations prejudicial to national integration), 499 (defamation), 504 & 505(2) (insult to provoke breach of peace, false statement, rumour etc with intention to create enmity between different classes), and section 34 (common intention) of IPC,” PUCL said.
The PUCL said that it sees the registration of this “frivolous” FIR by Manipur Police on the 8th of July, as an atrocious, malicious and unconscionable abuse of power by the police.
“The action of the Manipur police criminalising the use of human rights tools, like fact finding, publishing the FF report and the press conference thereafter is a brazen attempt to silence and frighten civil society groups from independently visiting conflict hit areas, conducting enquiries and publishing reports highlighting facts and incidents as they occurred on the ground,” PUCL press release read.
PUCL also expressed it serious concern over the continuing violence that still prevails in Manipur.
“As on date it is reported that more than 140 persons have been brutally killed in the conflict, including the Kuki, Zo and Meitei community people. More than 300 churches are reportedly destroyed by marauding mobs; numerous villages have been burnt down displacing thousands of people,” it said.
Instead of addressing how to calm tempers and bring peace to the state, attempts by the Manipur police and government to weaponise the law and criminalise human rights activists is wholly unacceptable and needs to be condemned, read the press release.