Manipur crisis reaches UN, ahead of Delhi G20 human rights experts call out Govt of India response to Manipur violence “slow and inadequate”; India rejects reports and call it “presumptive & misleading”

The Manipur crisis has reached the United Nations with UN human rights experts expressing concern over serious “human rights violations, abuses including alleged acts of sexual violence, extrajudicial killings, home destruction, forced displacement, torture and ill-treatment” in the conflict-hit state in the North Eastern part of India. UN human rights experts have released a press statement on Saturday calling the response of the Government of India “slow and inadequate”. The report for the UN was prepared by eighteen experts, most of whom are special rapporteurs working with the UN Human Rights Council.

“We are appalled by the reports and images of gender-based violence targeting hundreds of women and girls of all ages, and predominantly of the Kuki ethnic minority. The alleged violence includes gang rape, parading women naked in the street, severe beatings causing death, and burning them alive or dead,” the experts said in the report with an obvious reference to the video of two tribal women being paraded naked that surfaced in July this year and had stormed the country and the Parliament Monsoon session.

The experts observed that the violence was further incited and spread due to “hateful and inflammatory speech that spread online and offline to justify the atrocities committed against the Kuki ethnic minority, particularly women”, The report further added that there were “misuse of counter terrorism measures to legitimise acts of violence and repression against ethnic and religious minorities.”

The UN human rights experts also observed that the violations in Manipur were another testament of the “steadily deteriorating situation for religious and ethnic minorities in India” and held the Government law enforcing agencies responsible for not being able to arrest the situation which started on May 3 and had claimed more than 160 lives, leaving thousands displaced and homeless.

The experts welcomed fact-finding teams comprising of lawyers and human rights activists who have tried documenting the crisis but also noted that fact-finding people have been subjected to harassment. “We are also concerned about reported criminalization and harassment of human rights defenders documenting the cases,” the experts said in the report.

Recently Manipur police registered a FIR as was instructed by Manipur CM N Biren Singh against the Editors’ Guild of India (EGI) calling their report an attempt to “create more tension”. EGI’s report had criticised the Manipur government’s internet shutdown and called out media based out of Imphal biased towards one community. Previously Manipur Police had booked CPI leader and activist Annie Raja under sedition charges after they visited the divided state and called the violence a handiwork of the state government.

India has strongly rejected the observations of UN human rights experts calling them “presumptive and misleading”. “The Permanent Mission of India completely rejects the news release as it is not only unwarranted, presumptive and misleading but also betrays a complete lack of understanding on the situation in Manipur and the steps taken by Government of India to address it,” the Indian permanent mission UN said. India claimed that the situation in Manipur is stable now and that the Government is “committed to protecting the human rights of the people of India”. The Permanent Mission of India has urged the UN experts panel to “refrain from commenting on the developments, which have no relevance to the mandate given to them by the Council and abide by the established procedure for issuing news releases and wait for inputs sought from the Government of India before doing so.”

The UN human rights experts' report and observations came days before India is all set to host the prestigious global G20 summit in New Delhi, for the first time, over this weekend which would see the attendance of world leaders including US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunk amongst others.​