A video of two Kuki women being paraded naked by a mob has emerged from Manipur. Scores of young men can be seen walking alongside as other men drag the distressed-looking women into the fields.
Scroll has spoken to one of the survivors who said the assault took place near her village, B Phainom, in Kangpokpi district on May 4, a day after clashes erupted between the Meitei and Kuki communities.
After they heard Meitei mobs were “burning homes” in a nearby village, her family and others escaped through a dirt lane, but a mob found them, she said. Her neighbour and his son were taken a short distance away and killed, she alleged. The mob then began to assault the women, she said, asking them “to strip off our clothes”.
“When we resisted, they told me: ‘If you don’t take off your clothes, we will kill you’,” said the woman, who is in her forties. She said she took off “every item of clothing” only in order to “protect herself”. All the while, the men allegedly slapped and punched her. She said she was not aware of what was happening to her 21-year-old neighbour, because she was some distance away.
The woman alleged that she was then dragged to a paddy field near the road, and asked by the men to “lie down” there. “I did as they told me, and three men surrounded me… One of them told the other, ‘let’s rape her’, but ultimately they did not,” she said.
She added that she was “lucky” they did not go to that extent [of raping her]. “But they grabbed my breasts,” she said…
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here