The Manipur Police on Saturday arrested another person in connection with the sexual assault of three Kuki women that took place on May 4 in Kangpokpi district. A video of the incident had gone viral on social media.
This was the fifth arrest in the case. The police said they are making all-out efforts to arrest other accused in the case and are conducting raids on suspected hideouts.
The person arrested on Saturday has been identified as Yumlembam Nungsithoi Metei, India Today NE reported. The other four persons were remanded to police custody for 11 days on Friday.
On Thursday, a group of unidentified women burnt the home of Huirem Herodas Meitei, the main accused in the case. On Friday afternoon, a mob in the Thoubal district vandalised and torched the home of another suspect in the case, PTI reported. The suspect has not yet been arrested.
On July 19, the video showing two Kuki women being paraded naked by a mob in the Kangpokpi district was widely shared on social media.
Three women, including the two who were seen in the video, were sexually assaulted in B Phainom village of Kangpokpi district on May 4, a day after clashes erupted between Meitei and Kuki communities. One of the women was “brutally gang-raped”, according to a police complaint.
The first information report was registered on May 18. However, it was only after the video was shared on social media that the arrests took place.
Over the past three days, the video sparked criticism of the Centre and Manipur government by Opposition parties. Protests erupted in Manipur seeking stringent punishment for the accused persons.
Visuals released by PTI on Saturday showed security forces trying control a crowd in Imphal’s Ghari Makha Leikai area.
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‘Everyone should know what happened to us’: Four Kuki women recount brutal assaults they survived
Police deployed in Meitei-inhabited areas of Mizoram
Amid protests in Manipur, police personnel were deployed in areas of neighbouring Mizoram with Meitei populations to ensure security.
This was after the Peace Accord MNF Returnees’ Association, a group of former militants in Mizoram, urged Meiteis to leave the state for their own safety. The association said that the way in which members of the Kuki-Zo community in Manipur have been “tortured and mistreated” in Manipur is now known to the whole world.
The group said that due to this, it is unsafe for Meiteis to stay in Mizoram. “If they fail to leave and anything befalls them it will be their own responsibility,” it said.
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