Video emerges of mob parading 2 women naked in India’s Manipur, case filed against ‘800-1,000’ miscreants: reports

A video has emerged of two women being paraded naked by a mob in what has been identified as India’s violence-hit Manipur state, according to local media reports, which say that a case has been registered over the incident against “800-1,000 unknown miscreants”.

Violence in Manipur between members of the mainly Christian Kuki ethnic group, who mostly live in the hills, and the mostly Hindu Meiteis, the dominant community in the low lands, erupted on May 3, sparked by resentment over economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education reserved for hill people.

The EU parliament last week said the violence has “left at least 120 people dead, 50,000 displaced and over 1,700 houses and 250 churches destroyed” in the state on the Myanmar border that is governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party.

Today, Indian news website Scroll.in reported a video of two Kuki women, in which “scores of young men can be seen walking alongside [them] as other men drag the distressed-looking women into the fields” had emerged.

Scroll.in said it spoke to one of the women seen in the video who said the incident took place in her village in Kangpokpi district on May 4, a day after clashes erupted.

The woman said she and her family, among others, were escaping after they heard that Meitei mobs were “burning homes” in a nearby village. But a mob found them, she added.

She told Scroll.in that one of her neighbours and his son were killed by the mob, which also assaulted women, asking “to strip off our clothes”.

“When we resisted, they told me: ‘If you don’t take off your clothes, we will kill you,’” the report quoted her as saying.

She said she took off “every item of clothing” only in order to “protect herself”. All this while, she continued, the men slapped and punched her.

The report further quoted the woman as saying that she was dragged to a paddy field near and ordered to “lie down”.

“I did as they told me, and three men surrounded me … One of them told the other, ‘let’s rape her’, but ultimately they did not,” she said.

Scroll.in, citing a police complaint filed by the relatives of one of the survivors, reported that a woman was also gang-raped during the episode.

According to the report, based on the complaint, police said a zero first information report (FIR) was registered in the Saikul police station of the Kangpokpi district on May 18.

A zero FIR allows any police station to accept and lodge a complaint before forwarding it to the relevant station, the report explained.

It said an official at the Saikul police station said rape and murder charges were registered against “800-1,000 unknown miscreants” in the FIR.

“The particular incident, according to the complaint, involves five residents of the village who were fleeing ‘towards the forest’ to save themselves.

“The group comprised two men and three women. Three of them belonged to the same family: a 56-year-old man, his 19-year-old son and 21-year-old daughter. Two other women, one 42 years old and the other aged 52, were also part of the group,” the report elaborated on the FIR’s contents.

According to the FIR, the report said, these five individuals were on their way to the first when they were “rescued” by a team from the Nongpok Sekmai police station.

They were then “blocked on the way by a mob and snatched from the custody of the police team by the violent mob near Toubu”, the report cited the FIR, further stating that the mob was said to have immediately killed the old man after “all the three women were physically forced to remove their clothes and were stripped naked in front of the mob.”

The FIR said the 21-year-old woman was “brutally gang raped in broad daylight” while the other two women “managed to escape from the spot with the help of some people of the area who were known to them”.

It added that the 21-year-old’s younger brother attempted to defend his sister but he was “murdered by members of the mob on the spot”.

Meanwhile, India Today reported that the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum demanded that the central and state governments, National Commission for Women and National Commission for Scheduled Tribes “take cognisance of the offence and bring the culprits before the law”.

It added that members of the Kuki tribe were also planning to highlight the incident during a planned protest march on Thursday.