Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has publicly pledged to punish those guilty of gang rape and public humiliation of two Christian women in a village near Imphalu, the capital of Manipur state in the country’s northeast.
The incident sparked outrage across the country, with female victims of violence dubbed “daughters of Manipur.” The head of government broke his silence more than two months after those events, describing them as “an embarrassment to a civilized country”. He assured that “what happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven” and added that his “heart is full of pain and anger”.
Government censorship
The tragedy took place on May 4 in Nongpok Sekmai village in Thoubal district near Imphal, but only now the 26-second video has been posted online, causing shock and outrage across the country. Such a long delay in showing the short video was due to the information block imposed by the state authorities for more than two months.
The video shows a large group of about 1,000 men, some of whom had weapons in their hands, attacking two defenseless Kuki Christian women. They were beaten, and at least one of them (or maybe both?) was raped by a mob, after which they both had to walk naked through the crowd of their persecutors.
According to the local Tribal Leaders’ Forum, the rape took place after the village was burned down by attackers from another predominantly Hindu Meitei group. Police said incidents continued with the murder of a middle-aged man and the raped woman’s 19-year-old brother as they fled the village into a nearby forest, with the boy possibly trying to save his sister.
London newspaper The Teplegraph reported on July 21 that a 21-year-old Christian woman who had been raped said that “the police were with the mob that attacked the village at the time. And it was the police officers who told us to get out on the road, where this large group of men was already waiting. They handed us over to them.”
In response to the Prime Minister’s statement condemning the perpetrators of this act, the same police that led to it arrested 20 people. Khuirem Herodas, 32. In turn, N Biten Singh, the Prime Minister of Manipur, promised “a thorough investigation of this case and sentencing the criminals to the maximum penalty”.
Bloody Riots
In the northeastern Indian state of Manipur, bloody riots broke out in early May between the two indigenous ethnic and religious groups, the Meitei and the Kuki. The former form the majority in the state with more than 3.5 million inhabitants. At least 130 people, mostly Christians, were killed in the clashes there. In 16 districts, Hindus have set fire to about 40 Christian churches and about 60,000 Christians have had to flee their homes. According to The Telegraph, there were “protests by Kuka members against the unequal treatment in the awarding of jobs, mainly reserved for Hindus, and the grabbing of land belonging to Christians”.
Speaking to the Italian mission agency Asia News, the Archbishop of Imphalu, Dominic Lumon, described the events as a “complete collapse of humanity”. He stressed that he was “shocked and saddened by the news of this appalling human behavior that has become a virus that has swept the entire state, of the brutal violence that has been part of the violation of our women’s rights over the past three months.”
Source: Do Rzeczy
Roy Brown is a renowned economist and author at The Nation View. He has a deep understanding of the global economy and its intricacies. He writes about a wide range of economic topics, including monetary policy, fiscal policy, international trade, and labor markets.
