Eight women paraded naked, gang-raped in Manipur: Eyewitness

Kolkata: A video from Manipur which showed two women being stripped and paraded naked before being gang-raped has sent shockwaves across India. This incident reportedly took place during the first week of May. However, ‘Malayala Manorama’ had reported on June 7 that eight – and not two – women had faced this inhuman torture. In fact, the Manorama correspondent had also spoken to a woman relative of one among the two victims seen in the video.

The woman this correspondent met was staying at a refugee camp in Churachandpur after she narrowly escaped from the clutches of the assailants. “Eight women were paraded naked and gang-raped. My husband’s brother and his son, who tried to prevent the assault, were clubbed to death,” said the woman, a 40-year-old belonging to Bipinyam village in Kangpokpi district of Manipur.

On the evening of May 3, when the riots started, a mob attacked Bipinyam – a village where the residents belong to the Kuki tribe – and engaged in arson. The villagers fled wherever they could. Those who had escaped to the nearby forest returned to the village in the morning the next day believing that the mob had left.

However, the assailants returned in the evening. “We again fled to the forest. My husband’s brother, his son and the eight women who were later raped were in another area of the forest. However, the Meitei mob found the eight women, who were gang-raped after being paraded naked. My husband’s brother and son, who pleaded with the mob to spare the women, were clubbed to death with iron rods,” said the refugee woman at the camp.

Among the gang-rape victims was a woman who was the daughter of a man who was killed and sister of the other person who also lost his life. After the incident, she faced psychiatric problems and was admitted to hospital.

Police blamed

The women who faced the assault said that the police had allowed the mob to take them captive. The women also claimed that they had sought help from the police and while the officers were taking them to the police station, the mob had surrounded them again. Instead of protecting the women from the assailants, the police had withdrawn from the scene, and left the women at the mercy of the mob. One among the women identified the attackers as a friend of her brother. The victims said that they knew several of the assailants.

A police complaint was filed over the incident on May 18 itself. However, there was no action till the video went viral and a man was arrested the other day.

A peace march was later taken out at Churachandpur by around 10,000 people belonging to the Kuki tribe. They raised slogans demanding a separate administrative region, pointing out that they could no longer live with Meitei people.

Ten legislators belonging to the Naga community, which is the second most prominent tribe in Manipur, demanded stringent action against the perpetrators of the gang-rape.

Other shocking incidents

Several other ghastly incidents have taken place in Manipur during the riots. Some of them are not witnessed even in war zones, said observers. One involved a man carrying the severed head of a Kuki youth last month at Bishnupur and visuals of the scene had gone viral on social media. Now, it has emerged that the man carrying the head is the PRO of an MLA.

In another incident, an ambulance shifting an eight-year-old boy to a hospital in Imphal, the state capital, for advanced treatment after he was shot in the head was set on fire by a mob, killing the boy and his parents. As the boy’s mother was a Meitei Christian, the family had felt that travelling to Imphal was safe. However, the ambulance was attacked as the father belonged to the Kuki tribe.

Other recent incidents were a fatal shooting of a mentally -challenged Kuki woman in Imphal and a Naga woman by Meitei mobs.

CM’s response

Manipur’s Chief Minister N Biren Singh has said that hundreds of similar incidents have taken place in the state. Singh was responding to a query from the anchor during a television debate. The anchor had asked the Chief Minister whether he had not heard about the parading of the women even after a first information report (FIR) was filed on May 18. Singh told the anchor that the media was unaware of the ground realities in Manipur and disconnected the call.

Sack Manipur CM: Congress

The Congress has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sack Manipur Chief Minister Biren Singh. It wondered why the Prime Minister was making light of the situation in Manipur by comparing it to states ruled by Opposition parties.

“Modi speaks about Congress-ruled states such as Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, but he is silent on UP and Madhya Pradesh where the BJP is in power,” said Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.

The northeastern Indian state of Manipur has been witnessing unprecedented violence since early May as clashes broke out between the Meitei and the Kuki communities.