The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh’s resignation presents an opportunity for Indian authorities to “uphold and ensure human rights for everyone” and end the 14-month long ethnic violence in the northeastern state, said Aakar Patel, chair of the board at Amnesty International India.
Singh resigned on Sunday, February 9, 2025, amid mounting political pressure, with the opposition demanding a floor test for his government in Monday’s session.
He also met Union home minister Amit Shah, BJP’s northeast in-charge Sambit Patra and state party president A. Sharada Devi in Delhi before he tendered his resignation.
Also read: Manipur CM N. Biren Singh Goes After 649 Days of Ethnic Violence
“Biren Singh’s resignation presents in Manipur the opportunity for the authorities to uphold and ensure human rights for everyone, break with the violence and impunity of the past and work towards ending the ethnic violence in the state which has claimed the lives of more than 250 people in the last two years,” Patel said in a statement.
“The (BJP)-led governments at both state and central level have utterly failed to end the violence in Manipur, impunity of vigilante groups, and the divisive rhetoric that has flamed the ethnic violence. Their actions have led to repression of dissenting voices and an abject humanitarian crisis in the state,” he added.
He also said that the continued failure by government to hold to account those suspected to be responsible for human rights violations “risks sending the message that the impunity for these violations will continue” which, in turn, will fuel further violations.
“Unlike the emblematic cases taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation, like the case of the gang-rape of two Kuki women in May 2023 that found the Manipur police complicit – many lesser-known ones continue to struggle for attention of the state and central governments. This must change,” he said.
Also read: Ten Things That Emerged Out of a Year of Violence in Manipur
Notably, as per official records, more than 250 people have died in the violence that started in May 2023 in Manipur. More than 60,000 people have been displaced, Many homes, offices, villages, and places of worship have been burnt down, attacked, looted and vandalised.
In July 2024, Amnesty International had documented the ongoing violence and impunity in Manipur state.
For nearly two years, the Meitei and Kuki communities – the two main communities at war – have called for Biren Singh’s resignation, holding him responsible for the ongoing ethnic violence.
Singh’s resignation also comes after the Supreme Court earlier this month ordered for a sealed-cover report from the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory into audio tapes that allegedly had him saying that the ethnic violence in the state had been instigated at his insistence.
On February 3, the Truth Lab organisation that was engaged to verify the authenticity of the audio tapes and which has been submitted to a judicial commission and has brought Biren Singh’s role in the Manipur ethnic violence under scrutiny, told the Supreme Court that it found a 93% match between the voice in the tapes and that of Biren Singh.
The Wire has produced a series of extensive reports on the audio recordings. Read the five-part ‘Manipur Tapes’ reports of The Wire here: 1, 2,3,4 and 5.
The Union government asked for three weeks’ time from the Supreme Court to have the audio verified by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory. The apex court granted this request and the matter is scheduled to be heard next on March 24.