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Clip of Manipur horror fans tension, woman paraded naked
Three women of a family were allegedly assaulted, one of them gang raped, and her brother and father killed by a mob of 800-1000 men on May 4, officials said
A two-month-old video of two women being paraded naked in B Phainom village in Kangpokpi district of Manipur surfaced on social media on Wednesday, fanning fresh tensions in the ethnic violence-hit state.
Three women of a family were allegedly assaulted, one of them gang raped, and her brother and father killed by a mob of 800-1000 men on May 4, officials familiar with the matter said.
“The complaint was filed by the head of the village where the incident happened. A zero FIR was filed when the complaint came to us last month. The incident happened under the Nongpok Sekma police station of Thoubal so the case was transferred to them,” an official said requesting anonymity.
The state police also confirmed the incident in a statement late on Wednesday night, saying that a case of abduction, gang rape and murder has been filed against unidentified armed miscreants.
According to a first information report into the incident, a family of five fled to a forest to escape an armed mob that entered their village and vandalized houses.
The FIR, based on a complaint filed by the village head on June 21, said that the family was rescued by police.
However, while the family was on its way to the Nongpok Sekma police station in Thoubal, the mob accosted them and forcibly took them from police custody.
The miscreants first killed the 56-year-old man on the spot, the FIR said.
They then assaulted three women from the family and paraded them naked while recording videos of the incident, the FIR said. HT has seen a copy of the FIR.
One of the women, 21, was allegedly gang raped, the FIR said, adding that the miscreants also killed her 19-year-old brother for trying to intervene.
“The three women managed to escape from the spot with the help of some locals,” the FIR said.
According to the FIR, the case was not reported on time due to the “communal tension” in the state and the village head filed the complaint on June 21.
The FIR, citing the village head’s complaint, said the men belonged to the Meitei community.
Ethnic violence largely between the Kuki and Meitei communities has rocked the state for two months, and has claimed over 150 lives and left over 50,000 injured.
Clashes first broke out on May 3 in Churachandpur town after Kuki groups called for protests against a proposed tweak to the state’s reservation matrix, granting scheduled tribe (ST) status to the Meitei community.
The police statement on Wednesday night said, “The police are making all-out efforts to arrest the culprits at the earliest. During the last 24 hours, the situation in the state is peaceful but tense in some places with sporadic incidents of firing and gathering of crowd at different places.”
The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) condemned the incident and requested the National Commission for Women and National Commission for Scheduled Tribes to take cognizance of the incident. While ITLF alleged that many such incidents occurred in the first few days of the violence, HT could not independently verify their claims.
An activist, who has been working on the case, said that the surviving members of the family along with other villagers have now moved to a government camp in Churachandpur.
