The National Commission for Women (NCW) had received multiple e-mail complaints from activists about the horrific incident in Manipur’s Kangpokpi district along with other crimes against women, however, no response was received.
Two Hyderabad-based activists and US-based North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA) had sent out separate e-mails to NCW chief Rekha Sharma, mentioning how tribal women were being raped, sexually assaulted and murdered at the hands of armed mobs, reported The Times of India.
In the complaints, the activists mentioned as many as six incidents based upon testimonies of victims and survivors of sexual assaults that were shared with the activists.
On Friday, Sharma said that she had reached out thrice in the last three months to authorities in Manipur over incidents of violence against women but no response was received from them.
Responding to reports that claimed the NCW had on June 12 received a complaint about the incident of two women being paraded naked on May 4, but no action was taken, Sharma said, “We had to verify the authenticity, and also the complaints were not from Manipur, some were not even from India. We reached out to authorities but no response was received from them but then we took suo motu cognisance when the video (of women being paraded naked) went viral yesterday,” Sharma said.
“It is wrong that NCW was sitting on the complaints,” she added.
The May 4 incident, came to the fore, when a 26-second video from the incident, went viral on social media on July 19.