Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, July 22: Yet another horror story of tribal women having sexually assaulted, and in this case allegedly murdered, have surfaced in Manipur.
The incident was of the same day the two tribal women were gang raped and paraded naked, but 40 kilometres apart in the same Kangpokpi district. The ruling BJP fighting against back to the wall as new horror stories are emerging from Manipur and adamant not to sack the party government in the violence-torn state, has turned its attention on the non-BJP states and demanded the resignation of the Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot for the “highest number of cases of crimes against women” in his state.
The BJP has also suddenly found out two incidents of “gang rape and parading naked” of two women in West Bengal, apparently to push Manipur from the limelight. The West Bengal incident is alleged to be of July 8, the day of the violence-ridden panchayat polls but the party has not given any explanation why the incident was not brought to light then and why the allegation was made only after the Manipur incident created national outrage.
The police have denied there was any such incident in West Bengal pointing out that the BJP fact-finding committee which had visited the area of the alleged crime then had also not brought any such incident to the knowledge of the police. No statement had either been recorded of the alleged victims and it was only the BJP leaders who “broke down” while narrating the horror stories of the party candidates being “gang raped and paraded naked.”
In Manipur, on the same day the two tribal women were stripped, paraded and allegedly gang raped by a mob, two other young women, also from the state’s Kangpokpi district, were brutally assaulted and murdered amidst a wave of ethnic violence that is yet to abate.
The victims, aged 21 and 24, were working at a car wash in the Konung Mamang area of the Imphal East district, around 40 kilometres away from the site of the other incident, when they were targeted by a mob on May 4.
The two women at the car wash were reportedly assaulted by a large group of men, accompanied by some women. A male co-worker, who witnessed the incident, said the women in the mob encouraged the men to take the victims inside a room and sexually assault them.
The victims were dragged into the room, the lights were switched off, and they were gagged with clothes to prevent them from screaming. After enduring this horrific ordeal for about one-and-a-half hours, the victims were dragged outside and dumped next to a sawmill in the vicinity. Their clothes were torn, their hair chopped off, and their bodies were covered in blood.
The identities of the victims were initially not reported due to the fear of stigma associated with sexual assault. However, the mother of one of the victims mustered the courage to file a Zero FIR at Saikul police station on May 16, media reports said. The FIR, which stated that her daughter and the other woman were “brutally murdered after being raped and gruesomely tortured,” was later transferred to Porompat police station in Imphal East district.
“Their dead bodies are not yet recovered, and their whereabouts are also not known till date,” the police complaint read, putting the number of assailants at about 100-200. It was at the same police station that another FIR was registered concerning the alleged abduction, rape, and murder of the two women whose horrific ordeal was recorded on video and has triggered nationwide anger.
Police sources have confirmed that no arrests have been made in this case so far. The Manipur police are currently examining thousands of complaints related to various crimes, including weapon looting, arson, killings, and assaults on women.
The incidents have also been flagged to the National Commission for Women in a complaint by two activists and the North American Manipur Tribal Association. They are the latest tale of horror to emerge from the state, where at least 125 people have been killed and more than 40,000 displaced since the violence erupted on May 3.
The Manipur police have arrested one more person in connection with the horrific case of two women being paraded naked in Manipur. A massive manhunt continues to track down a dozen suspects who could be seen in the viral video. Chief Minister N Biren Singh has said he is personally monitoring the search operations. Raids are being conducted at many suspected hideouts, the state government said, adding that the situation is still tense and volatile. Peaceful sit-in protest demonstrations took place at several places.
Four others, including the prime accused Huirem Herodas Meitei, were arrested on Friday over their involvement in the case. Herodas’s house was set on fire yesterday by the women of Petchi Village. 126 checkpoints were set up in different districts, in both the hills and the valley, and police detained 413 people for violations, a government note said.
Fighting with its back against the wall on crime against women in Manipur, the Union minister Anurag Thakur, quoting official data, said Rajasthan ranks highest in rape cases. “22 per cent of women’s rape cases in a year happened in Rajasthan,” he said. “Any crime against women is crime, and outrage can’t depend on which government is in place,” Thakur said, and asked the opposition if they will send teams to Bengal, Bihar, and Rajasthan, where such crimes have been reported recently.
After data from the National Crime Records Bureau last year showed that Rajasthan had the highest rape cases among states, Ashok Gehlot had attributed the numbers to a compulsory FIR registration policy while claiming that 56 per cent of cases of crime against women in the state had later turned out to be false.
The union minister also slammed Ashok Gehlot for removing from the cabinet the minister of state Rajendra Gudha for questioning his own government’s alleged failure in controlling crimes against women. In his address at the state assembly, Rajendra Singh Gudha had said, “It is true and should be accepted that we have failed in women’s safety. Instead of Manipur, we should look within ourselves why atrocities on women have increased in Rajasthan.” Gudha was one of the five members who were elected on the Bahujan Samaj Party ticket and later en masse joined the Congress.
Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi refrained from making any statement on Manipur for the last 80 days till he called the stripping and parading the women a “national shame” on Thursday, Thakur questioned why were the Gandhis (the Congress leaders) were silent on alleged crimes against women in Rajasthan.
Amid accusations of inaction on crimes against women, Ashok Gehlot launched a scathing attack on Modi accusing him of refraining from visiting violence-hit Manipur. “For the first time, I have seen that a Prime Minister is visiting Karnataka, Rajasthan and other places for elections, but not Manipur. It is his government in Manipur, just imagine what would he have said if it was a Congress government there,” he said.
On PM Modi allegedly making a reference to incidents in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh while commenting on the video of women being paraded naked and assaulted in Manipur, Gehlot said his remark has hurt the sentiments of Rajasthan. “The way Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the CMs of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh should take care of the law and order situation in their state, it has hurt the sentiments of Rajasthan,” Gehlot said.
The Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma smelt “politics” on the timing of the release of the viral video of the women being paraded naked and questioned why it surfaced only a day before Parliament was to begin the monsoon session. He claimed that incidents of rape are much higher in some opposition-ruled states like West Bengal, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh than BJP-ruled Manipur or other north-eastern provinces.
“The case (regarding the incident) was registered long back, video was available. It was leaked a day before the commencement of the Parliament session. So, some kind of political things are involved,” he added.