LS MP flags lies in PUCL report
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, August 27 2025: Exposing the true "motive" and "sheer hypocrisy" of the People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) in its attempt to paint Meitei community as the perpetrator in the Manipur crisis, Lok Sabha MP Dr Bimol Akoijam has sought an unconditional apology from the union's president, Kavita Srivastava and withdraw the union's report.

Advocating that one must move beyond "victim and perpetrator roles" for peace to return, while simultaneously attempting to represent a contradictory and counterfactual narrative that perpetuates one community as a victim and another as a perpetrator, is nothing but sheer hypocrisy, said Dr Bimol in a letter to PUCL president Kavita Srivastava today.

LS MP flags lies in PUCL report

The PUCL report titled "Independent People's Tribunal on the Ongoing Ethnic Conflict in Manipur" was published in Delhi on August 20 .

"The report comes to me as an embodiment of not only insensitivity, intellectual bankruptcy, and ideological blind spots but also of a hangover of racist orientalism...

It still shudders me to confront the fact that a group of well-known public figures, including former jurists who had served the highest Court in this country, reputed scholars, and civil liberty advocates, could make such an irresponsible and dangerous blunder," Dr Bimol said in the letter.

Let alone the tone and tenor that speaks of the inescapable partisan orientation that the report exemplifies, it also adds fuel to the violent crisis that has caused an unprecedented human tragedy in the State, Dr Bimol said, countering and exposing the motive behind publication of the report.

Dr Bimol's point-wise observation of the report as written in the letter has been reproduced here with some changes.

1) "From the Meitei side, there is also despair...There is widespread anger at Union Home Minister Amit Shah for what is seen as a betrayal.

Promises were not kept"! (p.690)
The report suffers from an avoidable orientation that seeks to conflate Meitei as a community with the BJP simply because the former is a "primarily Hindu" community.

In fact, going by what is already in the public domain, including in the High Court, if there is any understanding, it's between the BJP/Amit Shah and the "Kuki" armed groups under the Suspension of Operations (SoO) agreement.

But how did the PUCL deal with the information that the BJP had entered into an understanding with the Kuki "armed groups under the SoO for the latter to help them to win the election, and with the "promise" that once they win the election, they would take care of their demand (separate administration)?

The fact that the Government (under the BJP) had transferred money to these SoO groups before the election, and the timing and manner in which the money, running into crores of rupees, was transferred, does this bother the investigators?

2) "True dialogue must include all SoO groups if it is to have legitimacy on the Kuki side", (p.691)
According to the PUCL, what role have these groups played in the current violent crisis that led PUCL investigators to recognize them as "stakeholders" and advocate for their involvement in peace talks to lend the process "legitimacy"?

Shouldn't the investigators look into the relationship between members of the political parties and these armed groups, just as it has done vis-a-vis the Meitei groups?

3) "Mobs rampaged through Kuki settlements in Imphal and nearby areas.

In Churachandpur and Kangpokpi, retaliatory violence emerged against Meitei homes and properties.

(p.20)
"This line captures the overall tone and tenor of the report.

What is the basis for arriving at this conclusion that retaliatory violence" in Churachandpur after violence in Imphal? Can any non-Manipuri journalists who covered the event corroborate this preposterous claim?

Ironically, the report has quoted the depositions of victims on when and where, and how, the violence erupted in Churachandpur and border areas with Bishnupur with Meitei houses being burned down much before the violence erupted in the evening in Imphal.

Yet it concludes that violence started in Imphal against the "Kukis" and the retaliatory "violence emerged later on in Churachandpur and Kangpokpi as "Kukis" only retaliated" to the violence against them!

Preaching that one must move beyond "victim and perpetrator roles" (p.691) for peace to return, while simultaneously attempting to represent a contradictory and counterfactual narrative that perpetuates one community as a victim and another as a perpetrator, is nothing but sheer hypocrisy.

4) Why do the investigators choose to use photographs of the dead victims, such as the pictures of a decapitated victim, which have been used twice in the report? (p.193, p.582)
PUCL investigators have deliberately excluded the pictures of Meitei victims and chosen to reproduce only the images of the "Kuki" victims (17 in total in the report) who were killed during this communal violence.

It is obviously a profound revelation of the underlying orientation of the PUCL team, revealing their motive to present one community as the victim and another as the perpetrator.

But what is deeply troubling is not this bias but the racist orientalism of - the team and its authors.

"Thus, given such a deplorable display of irresponsibility and the dangerous implications of the report, all in the name of an "independent" inquiry, I seek you to demonstrate fortitude and self-respect, and tender an unconditional apology to the people of this country, and immediately withdraw the report.

I believe that it will not only be a way forward to restore justice and peace in Manipur, but also to combat communal forces and uphold the dignity and lawful existence of the millions in this country," Dr Bimol said in the letter.