Read part one of the ‘Manipur Tapes’ series here. Read part three of the series here.
New Delhi: An audio recording of a meeting – said by a well-placed source to have been addressed by N. Biren Singh at his official residence in Imphal late last year – features a voice claimed to be that of the Manipur chief minister doubting the complaint filed by two Kuki-Zo women paraded naked by a mob in Kangpokpi district in May 2023 that they were molested and raped.
When a video of the two women emerged in July 2023, outrage against the horrific act swept through the country. Several Meitei civil society groups also spoke out against it, including the powerful women’s body, Meira Paibi, whose members attacked the houses of the men who featured in the video including the main accused and demanded the government give them a ‘befitting punishment’.
In the audio recording, however, the voice said to be of the chief minister can be heard making light of the crime against the two survivors and berating Meitei civil society groups for not coming out and “asserting boldly, with pride” that “it is we, the Meiteis who saved them from the mob”. “How badly we were shamed!… We should have taken credit for saving them, clothing them and sending them home,” the recording captures the speaker as saying.
The Wire can confirm that the 48-minute recording has been formally submitted to the Commission of Inquiry currently probing the ethnic violence in Manipur along with an affidavit attesting to its authenticity from the person/s who say they recorded the chief minister at his official residence.
While The Wire is unable to independently establish that the person who is heard speaking on the recording is indeed Biren Singh, we have confirmed the date, subject and contents of this meeting with some of the participants, none of whom was willing to be identified because of fears for their safety. Some persons claiming to have been participants at the meeting assert that the voice is indeed that of chief minister Biren Singh and that he did say all the things in the recording in their presence.
Some of these persons were also able to confirm to The Wire that the full audio clip has been submitted to the Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice (Retd) Ajai Lamba, a former chief justice of the Gauhati high court. The Commission was set up by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in June last year to probe the violence which has so far claimed the lives of over 220 people.
On its part, the Manipur government has said the audio in question is “doctored” and that the recording has been “falsely” claimed to be that of the chief minister.
Given the compelling public interest involved in the contents of this recording, The Wire is placing key excerpts in the public domain.
In the recording, the voice claimed to be that of Biren Singh can be heard suggesting that the Meitei civil society groups which had identified some of the men accused of involvement in that crime should have told the “NIA” (National Investigation Agency) to “reward” the men who were part of the mob for “saving” those women, “clothing them” and sending them home, while their brother and uncle had not been spared by the same mob.
Viral video sent shock waves
On July 19, 2023, just months after bloody ethnic strife erupted between the Meitei and Kuki communities in the state, a 30-second video clip recorded on May 4 emerged, featuring two Kuki-Zo women being paraded naked and being groped by a sizeable mob of men belonging to the Meitei community in Kangpokpi district.
In their testimony to the media, the survivors said that after they were led away by the mob, they were sexually assaulted and raped.
Also read: Manipur Video Assault: Cops Refused to Drive Kuki Women to Safety Before Attack, Says Report
Fingers were immediately pointed at chief minister Biren Singh as he is also the state’s home minister. Demands for his resignation came from the opposition for having failed to maintain law and order in the state and ensure the safety of women. The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, the apex body that raised the voice of the Kukis during the conflict, sought President’s Rule in Manipur.
What is said in the recording?
The audio clip in Meiteilon said by our source to be recorded at the chief minister’s official residence just months after the video of that horrific incident had gone viral and claimed to be in the CM’s voice – also suggests an attempt to play down the fact that members of the mob could clearly be seen groping the two women as they led them away:
“Hoi! See, photos are photos, hands could be seen placed here and there.
But it is not necessarily the fact.”
By dismissing what was visible to the naked eye and doubting the veracity of the survivors’ testimony that they had been raped, were the men accused of such a grave crime being given a clean chit of sorts and in fact being commended?
From the audio comes across the view of the speaker (said to be the chief minister), that the Meitei civil society groups, instead of condemning the men from the community, should have aggressively and publicly stated that “it is we (Meiteis) who saved them”, “clothed them” and “sent them home”.
This is an English translation of the relevant portion of the audio clip:
“…Then, [there is the] case of the two women paraded naked…how badly we were shamed! Why didn’t even one group come out and assert? It was a bit difficult for me to speak out then…even though I have started speaking it out now. But why didn’t any group come out and assert boldly that it is we who saved their lives? They should have asserted boldly, with pride, that it is we who had saved them.
“Hoi! We could have asked where is the proof, how can you say that they were raped? The brother and the uncle were killed by a mob of a lakh…Ah! By 10-20 thousand people…we should have said it is we, the Meiteis, who had saved them from the mob. We should have said that, it was unsatisfactory. We should have taken the credit of saving them, clothing them and sending them home.
“When Meiteis were shamed worldwide with this incident, I told them that something should be done about this through the press, about the children… [The Wire adds: This appears to be a reference to the murder of two Meitei teenagers who went missing in July. A photo of their dead bodies emerged and went viral in September 2023].
“Hoi! See, photos are photos, hands could be seen placed here and there. But it is not necessarily the fact. The real fact is that we saved them from the mob, by us, by the youth. We saved them from the mob and sent them home. We did not take credit for that, we passed it by.
“Assh! We are so foolish, I thought…Now too, I told those people, those, who are handing them over to the NIA, to tell that those people arrested should instead be rewarded. Rewarded for saving them…”
Assertions made in audio clip match CM’s statements, actions
As a matter of record, the words attributed to Biren Singh by our source through the audio tape match what the CM has said or done in the public domain about the case. For instance, the chief minister had begun publicly stating that the Meitei community must be given credit for saving the two Kuki women from the mob. That position taken by him was picked up by at least one website to claim that the Kuki (Christian) women were saved by Meitei (Hindu) men”.
Some Meira Paibi leaders also began taking a similar line later on local news channels.
In the recording, the voice – which some of those present in the meeting have said is Biren Singh’s – can also be heard saying that he had strategised “something” that was to be done “through the press about the children” to counter Meiteis being “shamed worldwide”.
This appears to be a reference to the disappearance of two Meitei teenagers from Bishnupur district on July 6, 2023. Two photos of the teenagers surfaced in the third week of September 2023, and the media noted that this was soon after mobile internet services were temporarily restored. One shows them sitting in a forested area apparently in the custody of armed men and the other is of their lifeless bodies, allegedly shot by Kuki militants.
Soon after the photos emerged on social media, the distraught father of one of the missing children urged the state government to find their bodies. In September 2023, the chief minister’s office said that the case had been forwarded to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). To date, the bodies of the two teenagers have not been found.
Viral video pushed ‘double engine’ on the defensive
Till the video clip of the sexual assault went viral, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had evaded the opposition’s demand to even have a discussion on the fast deteriorating Manipur situation in parliament. Even while responding to the demand for Biren Singh’s resignation after the video had come out, Union home minister Amit Shah had told the Lok Sabha that the chief minister was “cooperating” with the Centre. Shah accused the Congress of “playing politics” on Manipur.
However, that video clip of the sexual assault did compel Prime Minister Narendra Modi to break his Sphinx-like silence on Manipur. In a brief statement in front of parliament house on the opening day of the monsoon session, Modi condemned the sexual assault on the two Kuki women, but not without mentioning the need to also protect women in two other states, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, then under Congress rule.
Modi tried to paper over the horrific act carried out in a state ruled by his own party by saying, “I appeal to all chief ministers — whether Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh or Manipur — that they strengthen all law enforcement for the protection of women. In any corner of this country, under any party’s government in any state, law and order is prioritised, and so is the honour and safety of women.”
On July 21, 2023, the Supreme Court called the video clip “deeply disturbing” and took suo-motu cognisance of it. The apex court has since been hearing the case.
In tandem, on July 29, 2023, the Union home ministry handed over the matter to the CBI.
Contrary to Shah’s claim in parliament of Singh “cooperating” with the Union government, the chargesheet filed by the CBI in the case at the special court in Guwahati on April 30, 2024 said that the Biren Singh government had till then, not granted sanction to prosecute the accused under section 153A (promoting enmity among different groups on the grounds of race). The chargesheet also revealed that the CBI had not made any more arrests after six people who were part of the mob were taken into custody by the Manipur Police in July 2023 — that is soon after the news had hit world headlines, and the chief minister was under immense pressure to be seen as acting on the matter.
Poll twist
Significantly, in the run-up to the recent Lok Sabha elections, the chief minister was seen giving a fresh twist to the sexual assault case by claiming that the opposition Congress had a “hand” in making that video clip “viral”. He claimed it was to “insult” Prime Minister Modi.
Biren Singh made that claim at a Yuva Sammelan in Imphal on April 7. By accusing the Congress of colluding with the Kukis, Singh seemed to have hoped the BJP would retain at least the Meitei-dominated Inner Manipur seat in those elections.
“To bring the issue under control, Union home minister Amit Shah himself visited and stayed in Manipur. However, the video was made viral on social media right before the start of [the] parliamentary session just to insult Prime Minister Narendra Modi and (the) BJP government with incomplete narratives,” he said. He also claimed, “Any small issue was instigated to escalate it into violence.”
The Inner Manipur seat, however, went to the Congress.
Police inaction mentioned in CBI chargesheet
Notably, both Singh and Shah have, so far, remained silent on the role some state police personnel played in exposing the two survivor-women to the fury of the mob, leading to their sexual assault.
Just days after the chief minister had made the claim of ‘Congress complicity’ in making the video clip viral, the CBI recorded in its chargesheet that Manipur Police personnel, instead of protecting the Kuki women – one of whom was the wife of a Kargil war veteran – took them towards “900-1000- persons” and left them there. It mentioned that they did it after the driver of the police vehicle refused to help them initially, claiming that he didn’t have the keys of the car.
Status of the case in Supreme Court
It’s been over a year now that the case has been pending in the Supreme Court.
Colin Gonsalves, who has been representing a number of other cases related to the victims of Manipur’s ethnic violence, told The Wire, “As many as four reports were submitted by the state director general of police (DGP) to the apex court; it has been several months now but the victims’ lawyers have not been given access to those reports. Additionally, the court had asked the state government to construct the 4,500 houses and 3,500 churches that were burnt and give possession to the victim community. But till today, the work has not started.”
He also added, “We had very high hopes when the Supreme Court took suo motu cognisance of the Manipur violence but there is no hope at all now.”
Gonsalves underlined the fact that the Manipur cases have not been heard by the apex court for the past six months.
Questions to the chief minister
In the light of the new revelations, The Wire has sent the following questions to the chief minister:
A) Do you doubt the allegations of rape made by the two Kuki women who were paraded naked by a mob?
B) Do you believe parading naked in public a woman and groping her by a set of men is not equal to rape/gangrape or sexual assault?
C) Do you think there may not be any sexual intent in parading the women naked in public by the mob?
D) Did you ask any Meitei civil society group to tell the ‘National Investigation Agency’ that those who were arrested for the crime should instead be rewarded?
E) Did you ask any Meitei civil society group to say ‘with pride’ that it was the ‘Meitei’ (those who were in the mob) who saved those women, clothed them and sent them home while their uncle and brother were not spared by the same mob?
F) Did you ask anyone to push through the Press the horrific case of two Meitei children killed during the ethnic conflict allegedly by Kuki militants as a counter to the community being shamed worldwide due to the viral video clip of the two Kuki women?
The story will be updated when we receive a response.
Note: The Wire was informed after the publication of the article at Colin Gonsalves is no longer counsel for the survivor in this particular case. The article has been edited to reflect this. An earlier version had identified him as their counsel.
