A day after a harrowing video of women being paraded naked, groped and raped by a mob of men in Manipur sent shockwaves across the nation, one of the victims narrated their ordeal and said they had been “left to the mob by the police”, reported The Indian Express.
The incident took place on May 4, a day after ethnic clashes broke out in the state, but the video has only just surfaced. In the video, two women, one in her 20s and the other in her 40s, 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.
A police complaint states that one of the women was subsequently gang-raped. Based on the complaint, the police said a zero FIR had been registered in the Saikul police station of Kangpokpi district on May 18.
While first information reports are usually lodged in the police station under whose jurisdiction the alleged crime has taken place, a zero FIR lets any police station accept and register a complaint and then forward it to the pertinent station. The complaint states that the incident took place on the afternoon of May 4, a day after that violence broke out in the state.
In the complaint, it was mentioned that the victims had fled to a forest for shelter after their village in Kangpokpi district, was attacked by a mob and that they were later rescued by Thoubal 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.
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However, speaking to The Indian Express over the phone from her husband’s home, the younger woman alleged: “The police were there with the mob which was attacking our village. The police picked us up from near home, and took us a little away from the village and left us on the road with the mob. We were given to them by the police.”
While two women are seen in the video, another woman in her 50s was also allegedly stripped, and the father and brother of the youngest woman were killed by the mob.
In the complaint, the victims had said that there were five of them who were there together: the two women seen in the video, another woman in her 50s who was also allegedly stripped, and the father and brother of the youngest woman, who they alleged were killed by the mob.
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“After all the men were killed, and the mob did what they did, we were just left there and we escaped,” the woman said, IE reported.
She said that while there were “too many” men who were part of the mob, she was able to recognise a few of them, including one who she said she had known to be a friend of her brother’s.
Two months after the FIR was registered, the government and the police took action and have so far arrested an accused. The circulation of video which sparked national outrage prompted the government to take action.