Manipur police sent incomplete, incorrect clips for forensic analysis, Kuki group tells Supreme Court

A Kuki rights organization on Thursday filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court challenging the latest secret report submitted by the Gujarat National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU), which concluded that audio tapes received from a whistleblower, which claimed to contain phone calls of former Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh inciting ethnic conflict, were “altered, edited and tampered with”.

Kuki Human Rights Trust (KOHRT) told the high court that the Manipur police had sent incomplete, “cut clips” to the NFSU instead of full recording.

SIT probe wanted

The human rights organization has requested a court-monitored special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the matter.

The apex court bench, which heard the matter earlier this month, had noted NFSU’s findings. It then directed that the report be submitted to the petitioner and gave him two weeks to file an affidavit in response.

In his affidavit, KOHRT chairman HS Mate stated that after the court directed that the clips in question be sent to NFSU, the transmission agency (Office of Police, Cyber ​​Crime, Manipur) “transmitted only four short, cut clips” put together for a little under five minutes “instead of the entire 48-minute 46-second recording”.

“As a result, NFSU was unable to verify the continuity or authenticity of the original recording and even the Central Forensic Science Laboratory was unable to examine the same for the same reason,” Mr. Mate said in his affidavit.

‘A shocking discovery’

Mr Mate explained that given that they had submitted the entire audio recording and did not know what the transport agency had sent to the forensic laboratory in Gandhinagar, they “truly believed” that the entire recording had been sent to the laboratory for examination. “So it was shocking to later discover that the audio clips transmitted were inaccurate, incomplete and did not represent the original recording,” he said.

Additionally, the KOHRT chairman said NFSU limited its analysis to metadata and tampering detection, declaring the clips “tampered” or “AI-generated” based solely on discontinuities and processing traces, without any audio or spectrographic audio comparison.

While KOHRT had submitted audio recordings of the alleged leak in which Mr Singh was accused of inciting the conflict in the State, it had also submitted forensic analysis of the recordings conducted by Truth Labs, which found no continuity errors in the recordings and also concluded that there was a 93% chance that the voice in the recording belonged to Mr Singh.

Truth Labs, a private non-profit organization, was established as an independent forensic science laboratory in Hyderabad in 2007 by a group of retired Directors from the Central and State Forensic Science Laboratories and is trusted by the Supreme Court, at least six High Courts, courts, police, Central Bureau of Investigation, National Investigation Agency, Central Reserve Police Force and around 200 Ministries, departments and PSUs of the Central and State governments. Other authorities, according to the website.

Mr Mate argued that, in contrast, the Truth Labs report “reflected much greater scientific rigor and evidentiary value, while the Gandhinagar report suffered from procedural and methodological flaws resulting from incompletely communicated material”.

Also calling for a court-supervised investigation of the audio recordings by the SIT, the KOHRT chief went on to argue that the Supreme Court itself should not “enter into the technical exercise of determining whether the audio recording has been tampered with.” This matter falls within the purview of the investigation agency and a duly constituted SIT would be “the best place to ascertain the truth behind the leak and the larger criminal conspiracy”, he added.

Mr Mate added that “the inconclusiveness of the forensic report alone cannot be considered as a reason to stifle the investigation to the brink”. He said that even if a comprehensive investigation is completed and no material is found, the authorities are required by law to issue a closure report, but “for the truth to be revealed, a criminal case must be filed based on the audio recording and the Truth Labs report.”

It was published – 21 November 2025 01:35 IST