After a video showing two women from the Kuki-Zomi community being paraded naked by a mob of men and being sexually assaulted began doing the rounds on Wednesday, a 32-year-old man was arrested from Thoubal district on Thursday.

The accused, Heradas, was identified from the viral video and was nabbed by the police team.

The video brought to light an incident which took place in Manipur more than two months ago, when violence first started. The incident took place on May 4 in Kangpokpi district, a day after violence broke out in the north-east state. The mob also allegedly gang-raped one of the women and her brother was killed when he tried to intervene.

The video provoked sharp reactions from across the political spectrum, and prompted Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani to speak with the state’s Chief Minister N Biren Singh. The CM has ordered the police to investigate this case on priority.

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Reacting to the video, Smriti Irani took to Twitter to call the incident “condemnable and downright inhuman”. “The horrific video of sexual assault of 2 women emanating from Manipur is condemnable and downright inhuman. Spoke to CM @NBirenSingh ji who has informed me that investigation is currently underway & assured that no effort will be spared to bring perpetrators to justice,” Irani tweeted.

The two women, one in her 20s and the other in her 40s, are from the Kuki-Zomi dominated hill district of Kangpokpi. In the video, they can be seen being made to walk naked down a road and towards a field by a mob of men. Some of the men can be seen dragging the two women towards a field and forcibly groping them.

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While the incident had taken place in the Meitei-dominated valley district of Thoubal, the victims later filed a complaint at a police station in Kangpokpi district where a zero FIR was registered and the case forwarded to the police station concerned in Thoubal.

According to their complaint, while the video shows only two women, there was another woman in her 50s who was also forced to take off her clothes by the mob. The complaint also alleges that the younger woman was “brutally gang-raped in the broad daylight”.

In their complaint, the victims have said that five members of the village – the three women and two family members of the youngest – had fled towards the forest after a “group of 800-1,000 persons carrying sophisticated weapons like AK Rifles, SLR, INSAS and .303 Rifles” entered their village and began looting and burning it on May 4 afternoon, a day after violence had erupted in the state on May 3, The Indian Express reported.

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They said they were later rescued by the police and were being taken to the police station, but were stopped on the way by a mob and seized from police custody around two kilometres away from the police station. They stated that the youngest woman’s father was killed on the spot and that “all three women were physically forced to remove their clothes and were stripped naked in front of the mob”, after which they alleged that the youngest was raped in front of the others. They also alleged that her brother was killed while trying to help her.

The three women were later able to escape through the adjoining hill district of Tengnoupal and are currently in relief camps.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted that the “PM’s silence and inaction has led Manipur into anarchy”. “INDIA will not stay silent while the idea of India is being attacked in Manipur. We stand with the people of Manipur. Peace is the only way forward,” he wrote.