The idea of humanity is a beautiful but some humans are ugly deep down in their soul. It breaks my heart to see the darkness in the souls of some of the people in Manipur.
The people of Manipur, some of whom I have interacted with over the years, were simple people with penchant for natural in-built hospitality, kindness and hard-work, which one of the reasons so many from Manipur and other North-East state excel in the hospitality and other service-oriented industries.
It breaks my heart to see Manipur burn. But what is even worse, is to see and read about how some Manipuris have descended to depths of ugliness that would put even the devil to shame.
A horrific video has gone viral on social media today. The video is about two women of the Kuki-Zo tribe being paraded naked on a road by a group of men in Kangpokpi district in Manipur after the B Phainom village was burnt down.
According to allegations levelled by the Indigenous Tribal Leader’ Forum in a statement to the media, the women were gang-raped in a nearby field after they were paraded naked by some the men who paraded them naked.
This incident happened on May 4. A day before this horrific crime, Manipur erupted into violence because the people of the hill which are predominantly Kukis and Nagas and the people of the valley which are predominantly Meiteis conflicted over the Meiteis demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status.
In the video, that has gone viral today, it is seen that a large mob is parading two Kuki-Zo tribal woman naked toward a paddy field to be gang-raped. “The despicable scene, which happened on May 4, shows the men, a large Meitei mob constantly molesting the helpless women, who cry and plead with their captors,” the ITLF statement shockingly revealed.
The ITLF has further alleged that the horrifying ordeal suffered by these innocent women is amplified by the perpetrators’ decision to share the video, which shows the identity of victims, on social media.
I am not only shocked. I am also angry. A mob parading two women naked, then gang-raping them in the nearby paddy field, video-filming the entire video and then putting it up on social media is an inhumane act and an act of demented men who underneath their tough exteriors are cowards because they wanted show their supremacy by parading two women of a tribe whom they are in conflict with and raping them.
Men who come in mobs to carry out their dastardly acts of rape, murder and carnage are not men but impotent beings with no soul. Humanity in them is dead. There must be no mercy shown to such men. They need to identified, lined up and shot in public, so that an example is made-out of them in the same manner in which they wanted to do with the two women of the Kuki-Zo tribe. The authorities must parade them naked and shot them in public.
The other brutal fact about this horrific incident, according to the ITLF, is that two men were beaten to death by the mob first in that village and then they turned their ire towards the women.
Rape is a weapon to spread fear and subjugate people that you want to control and live with your fear, especially when it is an act committed by a mob.
The arrogance of this mob to commit such a heinous crime of shamelessly parading the women naked and then gang-raping them happened because they have no regard for the law or might be under the protection of certain influential sections either politically or socially that they do not fear the law.
Such an incident happening in today’s India is a shame on all of is Indians and most of all on the normally peace loving people of Manipur. It is also an exposure of the failure to the law and order in the state to control such brutality and vile nature.
Among those killed in the violent attack of the mobs since the onset of the violence in Manipur, three Christians were reportedly burned alive inside an ambulance by a mob on June 4. In Imphal West’s Iroisemba area, Meena Hangsing and her 7-year-old boy, Tonsing Hangsing, were rushing to a hospital, accompanied by a Meitei Christian neighbor, Lydia Lourembam, after he had been struck by a fragment from a stray bullet fired amid the ethnic conflict. The boy’s mother, a Meitei Christian married to a Kuki Christian, also suffered a hand wound from the gunfire. As their ambulance with a police escort made its way through Iroisemba, a mob of hundreds reportedly surrounded the vehicle. The mob reportedly claimed that the ambulance had previously been used to transport Kuki militants who had later attacked police. Though the mother and neighbor were Meitei, the mob, torched the ambulance and burned alive everyone inside, according to the local media reports.
The more Manpuri burns. The more Manipur will kills it soul. Don’t kill the soul of Manipur.
