Manipur: 20-yr-old gang-rape survivor dies in hosp after prolonged treatment

Since the assault, she was in and out of hospitals; was diagnosed with serious complications, and had depression, her mother said

Imphal: A 20-year-old woman who was abducted, assaulted and gang-raped in Manipur’s Imphal East in May 2023, during the ethnic violence between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo community, died earlier this month at a government hospital in Churachandpur district.

The victim, 18 at the time, was allegedly taken hostage on May 15, 2023, and taken to a hilltop in Bishnupur district where she was subjected to gangrape. She eventually managed to escape. (Representative image/AP)

The woman, who was 18 years old at the time, was shifted between hospitals in Nagaland, Assam and Manipur for treatment before she died at a government hospital in Singhat on January 11, the woman’s mother said on Sunday.

“Since the assault, she was undergoing treatment and was in and out of hospitals. Later, she was diagnosed with uterine fibrosis and other related complications. She fell ill suddenly a few days back and we had taken her to the hospital in Singhat, but she passed away there,” the mother said.

The family said she had also been suffering from depression and post-trauma stress since the incident.

According to the family and the FIR (which HT has seen), the woman who died last week was working at a beauty salon in Imphal when she was taken hostage around 5pm on May 15, 2023, from an ATM in the New Checkon area by four men in plain clothes. She was then taken to multiple locations and eventually to a hilltop where three of the four men allegedly raped her.

The woman fell off a creek and reached a road at the bottom of the hillock where an auto rickshaw driver rescued her and took her to Bishnupur police station, and then to Imphal the same night. She managed to reach Kangpokpi district, a Kuki-majority area, early on May 16 and then to a hospital in Kohima, Nagaland, given the critical nature of her injuries.

The family registered a zero FIR at Kangpokpi police station on July 21, 2023, under sections 354, 307, 364, 376, 376D, 506 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code and section 3 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The ethnic violence in Manipur between the Meiteis, who are a majority in the Imphal Valley, and the Kuki-Zo community, which is dominant in a few neighbouring districts, began on May 3, 2023. The clashes have left over 260 people dead and displaced more than 60,000 people from both sides.