Students burn copies of PUCL report on Manipur crisis

Rejecting the controversial report of People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) on Manipur crisis, students of various schools and colleges across the valley districts of Manipur on Monday set afire copies of the report.
While burning the copies and chanting various slogans, the students described the PUCL’s report as “biased, misleading and one-sided.”
The students held the protests outside their respective schools and colleges under the aegis of the Students’ Front of the Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI).
The PUCL released its Independent People’s Tribunal (IPT) report on Manipur crisis at New Delhi on August 20 last.
Alleging that it was not a fact-finding but a political endorsement disguised as a report that seeks to legitimise separatist agenda, the COCOMI has been organizing a series of public review of the PUCL-IPT report, where each misrepresentation, falsehood, and omission were being systematically exposed to the people of Manipur and the wider Indian public.
Monday’s protests carried out by the students of various schools and colleges were part of COCOMI’s ongoing campaign against the controversial report.
They alleged that the report is simply a document that distorts facts and undermines the suffering of the indigenous people of Manipur. During one such protest in front of Manipur College, Imphal, general secretary of students’ union of the college Yumnam Johnson alleged that in the PUCL’s report stated that the violence originated from Imphal.
“This narrative itself indicates that the report was prepared to serve vested political interests,” he said.
The Students’ Front of the COCOMI, in the meantime, charged that the PUCL report was drafted on table without a proper understanding of the ground realities and accused it of serving vested political interests.
The leaders of the front who took part in the protests maintained that the report ignored the voices of victims and communities who have been directly affected by the violence and blockade.
They declared that the act of burning the report symbolized the rejection of misinformation and false narratives being circulated in the name of human rights.
They urged the international and national organizations to present impartial accounts instead of trying to shield the groups responsible for violence and displacement.
Any attempt to malign the image of the indigenous people of Manipur or to cover up terroristic acts of armed groups would be resisted strongly, they declared.
The front urged the public to remain united in defending Manipur’s integrity and appealed to civil rights organizations to be sincere in their work on truth, fairness, and transparency.