The bone-chilling video of two women stripped naked and dragged to a paddy field by a group of armed men in Manipur, has expectedly stirred the collective conscience of the nation.
Though unjustified, what comes as a bigger shock is that it was purportedly a piece of fake news that led to the terrifying incident, and triggered the mob to assault the women.
A picture of a woman wrapped in a plastic sheet was circulated in Churachandpur as that of a Meitei woman raped and killed by Kuki men. The woman in the photo was later confirmed as Aayushi Chaudhary from Delhi who had been murdered by her parents in November 2022 – she was not a Manipur nursing student, according to police sources, India Today reported.
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This is what triggered the mob to abduct a group of five people in Kangpokpi. Inebriated men, some as young as 15 years old, dragged the women, one in her 20s and the other in her 40s, to a paddy field in Kangpokpi district on May 4 and gang-raped at least one of them.
As their ordeal was on, the men screamed, “We will do to you what your men did to our women.” For them, this was retribution. “It was all because of a piece of fake news. The men were saying ‘This is revenge for the Churachandpur case’,” said one of the women, as reported by The Print.
So far, four accused have been arrested in a case for which an FIR was registered on May 18. Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh said that the government was considering “capital punishment” against the perpetrators.
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A day before this on-camera horror took place, clashes broke out between the valley-majority Meitei and the hill-majority Kuki tribe in Manipur over the Meiteis’ demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status.
More than two months since the attack, survivors have blended among thousands of displaced people at the various relief camps. And their sexual trauma has dissolved into the countless stories of horrific mob attacks.