Manipur viral video: Police recovers cell phone with evidence
Manipur police have recovered a cell phone believed to have been used to record a video of the assault and murder of three women in May.
Manipur police officials aware of the probe into the May 4 case of three women who were stripped, one of them sexually assaulted and their two male members murdered, said they have recovered a cell phone from one of the six arrested accused, which they believe was used to record the video. Police are yet to reveal the identity of the arrested person, who recorded the video. The cell phone will be a crucial piece of evidence for the investigators.
On Sunday night, police tweeted that five arrested accused had been sent to 11-day police custody. Police said they are conducting raids at different suspected hideouts to arrest the other suspects.
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A police officer, aware of the probe details, who asked not to be named, said, “The phones have been seized and sent to the cyber cell. We are confident we have the phone on which the video was recorded.”
Meanwhile, police are questioning the six to identify the role of the other people who are suspected to have been involved in stripping the women and later murdering two male members of their family.
“It is possible that some people in the mob who were involved in this case were also part of the mob that attacked B Phainom village around midnight on May 4. That night the Nongpok Sekmai had received information about another village in the police station area that was attacked. It will be probed if the same mob was involved in the arson at that village too,” the official added.
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While the horrific crime happened on May 4, Manipur police began the probe and made the first arrest more than two months later (July 20), after a horrific 30-second video of the sexual assault was shared on social media last week and became viral. The video showed the men – identified in a first information report (FIR) as Meiteis – hooting and applauding as they groped the victims.
Police have so far arrested five men and apprehended a juvenile in the case.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum released a report detailing at least 13 different cases in which women were murdered, raped or assaulted by mobs starting May 3, the day ethnic clashed broke out in the state. To be sure, the ITLF’s report is based on interviews of different witnesses and family members. Police or the state government are yet to confirm the authenticity of the cases. The report did not have FIRs or other documents to confirm the incidents.
Around 150 people have died since the clashes broke out on May 3 in Churachandpur and spread to different parts of the state.
One of the incidents mentioned in the ITLF’s report is that of a 57-year-old bureaucrat (an under secretary in the Manipur government) and her 27-year-old son. The ITLF report said that on the morning of May 4, the woman and her son were attacked by a mob of around 200 people, who burnt their car and killed the two at the Langol area in Thoubal district.
Manipur police did not comment on the report.
Since May 3, the northeastern state has been gripped by ethnic clashes – primarily between the tribal Kukis, who mostly reside in the hill districts, and the majority Meiteis, the dominant community in Imphal Valley – in which at least 50,000 people have been displaced. 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. Violence quickly engulfed the state where ethnic fault lines run deep, displacing people who fled burning homes and neighbourhoods into jungles, often across state borders.