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A video showing two Koki-Zumi women being paraded naked by a mob of men and being sexually assaulted began making the rounds on Wednesday, highlighting an incident that took place in Manipur more than two months ago. When the violence first started.
A senior police official confirmed that the incident took place on May 4 in Thoubal district and that a zero FIR in the matter was registered on May 18 in Kangbokpe district. However, while the FIR was registered two months ago with charges including kidnapping, gangsterism and murder against the “unknown armed miscreants”, there have been no arrests to date.
The two women, one in her twenties and the other in her forties, are from the Kokbe-dominated Kangbukpe region. In the video, they can be seen walking naked down a road towards a field by a crowd of men. Some of the men can be seen dragging the women into a field and forcibly groping them.
While the incident took place in Thoubal Valley area controlled by Mitte, the victims later lodged a complaint with a police station in Kangbokbe District where zero FIR was recorded and the case was referred to the concerned police station in Thoubal.
According to their complaint, while the video only shows two women, there was another woman in her fifties who was also forced to undress by the mob. The complaint also alleges that the young woman was subjected to a “brutal gang rape in broad daylight”.
In their complaint, the victims said that five members of the village—the three women and two female relatives—had fled into the forest after “a group of 800-1,000 people carrying advanced weapons such as AK Rifles, SLRs, INSAS, and .303 rifles” entered their village and began looting and burning it. On the afternoon of May 4, the day after violence broke out in the state on May 3.
They said they were later rescued by the police and taken to the police station, but were stopped on the way by a mob and detained by the police about two kilometers from the police station. They stated that the father of the youngest woman was killed on the spot and that “the three women were physically forced to undress and stripped naked in front of a mob”, after which they alleged that the youngest was raped in front of the others. . They also claimed that her brother was killed while trying to help her.
The three women later managed to escape through the neighboring hill region of Tungopal and are now in relief camps.
In a press note in the evening, Manipur Superintendent of Police K Megachandra Singh said, “Concerning the viral videos of two women being paraded naked by unknown gunmen on May 4, a case of kidnapping, gang murder, etc. has been registered in Thoubal district against unknown gunmen and an investigation is underway. The state police are doing their best to catch the culprits as soon as possible.”
In response to the release of the video, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum—a gathering of registered tribes in Churachandpur—demanded the state and central governments, the National Scheduled Tribes Commission and the National Women’s Commission to know about the incident and take action against the perpetrators.
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