GUWAHATI: After nationwide outrage sparked by the viral video of two women from the Kuki-Zomi community being paraded naked and sexually assaulted in Manipur, one of the victims alleged that police left them to the mob.
Two women, one in her 20s and the other in her 40s, can be seen being forced to walk naked down a road and towards a field by a mob of men. Some of the men can be seen in the viral video dragging the two women towards a field and forcibly groping them.
Sources in the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum while referring the accounts of victim told this newspaper that the victims in their complaints had alleged that there were five of them who were there together-- the two women seen in the video, another woman in her 50s who was also allegedly stripped, and the father and brother of the youngest woman, who they alleged were lynched to death by the mob. All these inhuman acts took place in presence of police, he alleged.
It is significant that in the police complaint filed on May 18, the victim had also alleged that the younger woman was “brutally gang raped in the broad daylight”.
While narrating the whole incident in the complaint to police they had said that they had fled to a forest for shelter after their village in Kangpokpi district, was attacked by a mob and that they were later rescued by Thoubal police and were being taken to the police station, but were stopped on the way by a mob and snatched from police custody around two kilometres away from the police station.
Informing that victims and their family were not aware about the video being captured, sources in the Forum said that the state government started taking action only after the video of the incident went viral. He alleged that the state government was virtually reluctant to act on complaints of the victims.
In their angry reaction the leaders of the Forum told this newspaper “The video of two Kuki-Zo women being paraded naked and their private parts touched by mob is a chilling account of what has been allowed to happen in Manipur under the watch of both the Central and the state governments.”
He also informed that a relative of the victim filed a zero FIR, leading to the case being registered at Nongpok Sekmai police station. The incident took place on May 4 a day after violence started in Manipur.
Meanwhile, the state government on Thursday claimed to have arrested one of the accused in connection with the incident. Police said that the operation to arrest more of the perpetrators is ongoing.
In a statement, the New Delhi-based Indigenous Rights Advocacy Centre (IRAC), which works for the welfare of the Scheduled Tribes in India, stated that it is totally horrified by the incident of capturing of two innocent Kuki-Zo tribal women and parading them naked while sexually assaulting them by a mob of men. “The torture and looting of the dignity of women in broad daylight in such grotesque manner cannot be accepted or tolerated in any civilised society. IRAC condemns the incident in the strongest possible terms and demands swift action from the State government. IRAC demanded a fair, unbiased investigation to be completed within a specific time period, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice at the earliest”, stated Mr Dilip Chakma, Executive Director, Indigenous Rights Advocacy Centre (IRAC).
