Part of the Manipur Crisis Chronicle. Every claim carries a cited source; contested numbers are shown with their dates, never merged. This installment covers 1–30 November 2025, with a dated backfill from 27–29 October 2025 and the 1 December government response noted as it closed the month.
On November 3, the Supreme Court informed the Kuki Organisation for Human Rights (KOHUR) that a confidential report filed by the National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) at Gandhinagar had concluded that the audiotapes — sourced from a whistleblower who says they contain telephonic conversations of former Chief Minister N. [314] Biren Singh inciting ethnic conflict — are "modified, edited and tampered".[314] A Bench headed by Justice Sanjay Kumar read the report in the courtroom as the parties waited.[314] Justice Kumar told advocates Prashant Bhushan and Cheryl D'Souza that the tapes were "processed and altered" files, and not "scientifically fit for voice comparison".[314] Bhushan answered with the Truth Labs results — no breaks in the recording, 93% voice probability.[314] Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court "it is now quiet and peaceful" in Manipur.[314] The court allowed the petitioner two weeks to respond, and Bhushan submitted the tapes had been sent to the government over a year earlier, "yet it had remained uninvestigated".[314]
The reply came on November 20-21, as an affidavit by KOHUR's chairman H.S. [321] Mate: the forwarding agency, the Office of the Superintendent of Police, Cyber Crime, Manipur, "transmitted only four short, cut-out clips" — just under five minutes of audio — "instead of the complete 48-minute 46-second recording".[321] On that record, Mate stated, neither the NFSU nor the Central Forensic Science Laboratory could verify the continuity or authenticity of the original.[321] He called it "shocking" to discover the clips sent were "incorrect, incomplete, and did not represent the original recording".[321] The affidavit also argued the NFSU had confined itself to metadata and tampering detection and declared the clips "tampered" or "AI generated" without conducting auditory or spectrographic voice comparison, and it sought a court-monitored SIT.[321]
**Own analysis.** 030 recorded the fresh forensic report as still outstanding; November is the month the report arrived, was read in open court, and was immediately contested on chain-of-custody rather than on voice science. [314] [321] The chronicle records two claims and adjudicates neither: an institutional finding of tampering,[314] and a procedural challenge that the material examined was the wrong material.[321] The Government's courtroom position — that Manipur "is now quiet and peaceful"[314] — is a claim the month's own record below does not support.
The Sangai tourism festival, held after two years, opened on November 21 amid protest by internally displaced persons and NGOs, which the paper reports as impacting attendance.[323] On November 20, scores of protesters — IDPs and members of non-profits — tried to storm the festival venue in Imphal; security personnel restored order by firing tear gas shells and wielding batons.[322] COCOMI, the Imphal valley-based Meitei organisation, said it staged a mass agitation against the State administration's "unilateral decision" to proceed with the festival, and condemned the "brutal and unprovoked actions of the security forces against peaceful protesters that resulted in injuries to several individuals".[322] At the opening, COCOMI's cease-work continued and the organisation criticised the administration operating under President's Rule for pushing an "anti-people" festival.[323] Separately, Rajya Sabha member and titular king Leishemba Sanajaoba complained to Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla that IGP (Zone-I) Themthing Ngashangva had stormed into his compound.[323]
On November 27, police said three militants of the banned KCP (MFL), including a woman, had been arrested for threatening to trigger explosions during the festival — the action following a Facebook video posted on November 21 threatening to bomb an event running from November 21 to 30.[327]
On November 24, hundreds of IDPs from the Ekou, Dolaithabi and Yengkhuman relief camps tried to march to their homes at Pukhao and near Dolaithabi Dam in Imphal East district and were stopped by security forces, who fired tear gas shells.[325] One protester, S. Kumarjit Meitei, said: "We are mostly farmers. [325] [331] Our livelihood has been completely cut off after we were forced to flee our homes" — adding that the government says normalcy has returned, so IDPs should be allowed to return, and asking why security forces cannot deal with militants "instead of forcing us to remain in relief camps".[325] India Today NE's account of the same event records the demand as the story itself: displaced residents set out after insisting the Sangai festival signalled a return to normalcy, and were blocked from a belt bordering the Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi district.[331]
The pattern repeated. [328] [329] [334] On November 29, displaced people marching towards Gwaltabi were stopped at Yaingangpokpi in Imphal East and dispersed with tear gas; one agitator, S. [328] [329] [334] Ibemcha Devi, asked: "According to the government, normalcy has been restored in the State. [328] [329] [334] Then, why are we not allowed to return to our homes?"[328] The report notes such clashes had already happened multiple times since the festival began on November 21.[328] On November 30, hundreds of displaced people from Churachandpur, Kangpokpi, Imphal West and Imphal East protested near the Raj Bhavan; stopped by security forces about 200 metres away near the Kangla Gate, they carried placards reading "Displaced lives matter", "people boycott Sangai festival", "rights first tourism later" and "ensure our fundamental rights", before rallying towards Uripok.[329] A day later, the State government announced high-level panels to "strengthen" rehabilitation and resettlement — a State-Level Committee chaired by the Chief Secretary, with the Finance, Home and Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Commissioners, and the Special or Additional Secretary (Home) as convenor.[334] The same report supplies the month's clearest displacement accounting: 62,000 displaced, of whom about 58,000 continue to live in relief camps.[334]
On November 4, four cadres of the United Kuki National Army (UKNA), a non-SoO group, were killed in an encounter at Khanpi village in Churachandpur's Henglep subdivision, after what a Defence Ministry statement described as unprovoked firing on an Army column; the statement tied the operation to "recent atrocities by UKNA cadres, including the killing of a village chief, intimidation of locals, and attempts to disrupt peace and stability in the region".[315] On November 23, police reported four more arrests — two PLA cadres in Kakching and Bishnupur, a PREPAK (PRO) cadre at Moreh Gate and a KCP (PWG) member in Imphal West — part of intelligence-based combing for extortion and criminal cases.[330] On November 26, police said an improvised long-range rocket with nearly 40 kg of explosive, plus a launching stand and battery, was seized at Gelmol village in Churachandpur, alongside arms caches in Kangpokpi district including a German rifle, an improvised mortar, detonators and a Colt machine gun carbine.[326]
The drug economy thread continued. [318] [319] [332] On November 14-15, police and CRPF intercepted a truck at the Maram checkpoint in Senapati district and seized 18.2 kg of opium, arresting two men from Assam's Kamrup district.[318] Security forces destroyed poppy on 476 acres in Kangpokpi and Ukhrul districts over five days, November 11-15.[319] India Today NE reported a village chief, 43-year-old Lunkhohao Kipgen of Gunphaibung village in Saikul, arrested on November 23 with 986 grams of opium, and a separate drive clearing roughly 41 acres of poppy at Kotlen village with 23 makeshift huts demolished.[332] The Hindu's poppy report records the disputed causal claim as attribution, not fact: poppy is grown in the hills to produce opium, "the control of trade of which was allegedly one of the reasons behind the ethnic conflict".[319]
Former Chief Minister N. [312] [317] [324] Biren Singh, writing on X on November 21, claimed "certain powerful groups are deliberately trying to divert attention from the core problem of illegal immigrants in the State", and said Mizoram "is moving at an impressive pace in identifying illegal immigrants" — after media reports that Mizoram had completed 58.15% of the biometric enrolment of 31,214 Myanmar refugees sheltered across 11 districts.[324] On November 14, the Thadou Inpi Manipur (TIM) asked the BJP to undo the 2003 introduction of the "Any Kuki Tribes" (AKT) category in Manipur's Scheduled Tribes list — arguing, in the words of joint general secretary Manggou Thadou, that "a legislative action is needed in Parliament to delete the AKT category, introduced by the NDA government in 2003, from the Scheduled Tribe's list of Manipur".[317] TIM has separately said migrants from Myanmar have used the "redundant" category to claim Scheduled Tribe status, and asked for Thadou representation in future talks.[317] On November 1, the Kuki-Zo community skipped the state-level Kut festival for a third year; KZC spokesperson Ginza Vualzong said that "until the community gets some kind of solution from the government, I don't think we will be celebrating the festival".[312]
The formation push that 030 left open did not resolve in November. [313] [316] [320] On November 8, the KNO and UPF reiterated their Union Territory demand to MHA Advisor (Northeast) A.K. [313] [316] [320] Mishra, arguing co-existence under the Manipur State set-up was made impossible after the "ethnic cleansing" that began on May 3, 2023, and citing the pre-Independence "Excluded Areas" classification.[316] On November 17, two Kuki MLAs, Chinlunthang Manlun and Haokholet Haokip, said there had been "no decision by the legislators of the community to join a popular government in the State, as reported in a section of the media" — after reports that all ten Kuki-Zo MLAs had decided to join.[320] Two earlier November items round out the month's low-level friction: five arrests in Kakching over the assault of four Monsang student leaders on the night of October 30,[313] and a call for peace across the Northeast from the World Human Rights Organization's Northeast chapter.[333]
030 flagged a village-chief death in Churachandpur seen only via a capture list. [311] [315] The report is now read: M. [311] [315] Haokip, chief of T Khonomphai village in Henglep subdivision, was attacked on the evening of October 27 and died on the way to hospital; police said UKNA, which is not a signatory to the SoO pact, was suspected.[311] This is the death the Defence Ministry statement referenced eight days later.[315]
No second outlet was captured in the window for the 21 Nov affidavit — an outlet-diversity gap. [314] [318] [321]
The genuine split this month is not outlet framing but claim vs record: the SG's "quiet and peaceful"[314] against tear gas at the festival venue,[322] repeated IDP clashes,[328] and a 40-kg rocket seizure.[326] - **Recapture pitfall (5 hits).** Five CDX-listed November captures were stale recaptures of September-October articles (e.g. the CFSL-report article captured 3 Nov is the April 17, 2025 story; the SoO-PIB article is 8 Sep; the 25-MLA-Shah article is 8 Oct). [314] [318] [321] None adopted as November events; the underlying events were already chronicled in 024 and 029-030. [314] [318] [321]
No new official toll was published in November 2025; nothing merged. [314] [318] [321]