Manipur Horror: 77 days after 2 Kuki women paraded naked, sexually assaulted, video goes viral as internet gets restored

The viral video from Manipur in which two women from Kuki community being paraded naked and sexually assaulted has sparked nationwide outrage. The clip of the incident was widely spread on social media on Wednesday (19 July), 77 days after the crime took place on May 4. Several questions are being raised as to why there was a delay of over two-and-a-half-month and why no action has been taken into the act of crime in Manipur. The incident of two women being paraded naked by a mob of 800-1,000 men and being allegedly gang raped occurred in Thoubal district just a day after ethnic violence broke out in Manipur. Clashes broke out between members of Manipur’s Kuki ethnic group, who mostly live in the hills, and Meitei, the dominant community in the lowlands, on May 3 as a result of resentment over economic benefits and quotas in government jobs and education reserved for hill people. The clashes broke out after a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ was organised in the hill districts to protest against the Meitei community’s demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. Why Manipur women sexual assault video surfaced so late? Since May 3, internet remained suspended in Manipur and since then, the state government kept extending the suspension of internet to avert the spread of rumours, and videos, photos and messages, which could have affected the law and order situation in the ethnic violence-hit northeastern state. The ban was extended several times by the state home department to prevent the “spread of disinformation and false rumours, through various social media platforms such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc.” “There is apprehension that some anti-social elements might use social media extensively for transmission of images, hate speech and hate video messages inciting the passions of the public, which might have serious repercussions for the law-and-order situation in the state of Manipur,” the order had stated. The Manipur High Court on July 7 directed the Manipur government’s Home Department to lift the ban on providing internet through Internet Lease Lines (ILLs) across the State to facilitate limited access to internet services for the public. The court’s directions came after an in-chamber hearing on July 7, which lasted several hours, and broadly are for restoring limited access to ILLs, which are dedicated internet connections not shared with other users — often used by enterprises, businesses, offices, institutes. It appears that the video of Manipur women being paraded naked got delayed in coming to public domain and thereby, the action into the incident deferred as there was no internet in the state. With inputs from agencies