A 20-year-old Kuki woman who was gang-raped in Manipur in May 2023 died on January 10 of a prolonged illness linked to her injuries, Newslaundry reported on Saturday.
Her family said she never fully recovered from the physical and psychological trauma of the assault.
The woman was abducted on May 15, 2023 in Imphal while trying to withdraw money from an ATM. She said that over the course of several hours, she was assaulted at multiple locations in the city and forced into vehicles by groups of men, some allegedly affiliated with the radical Meitei outfit Arambai Tenggol. She later escaped with the help of an auto-rickshaw driver.
The woman was first taken to relief camps in Kangpokpi district and later received medical treatment in hospitals in Manipur and Nagaland. A medical report from Kohima, which Scroll independently verified, recorded her injuries as “alleged case of assault and rape”.
The case was first reported to the National Commission for Women in June 2023, Newslaundry reported.
She filed a police statement in July 2023, and a zero first information report was registered before the case was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation. A zero FIR can be filed at any police, irrespective of where the offence occurred. It subsequently has to be transferred to the police station that has jurisdiction over the matter.
More than two years later, no arrests have been made in the woman’s case.
Her mother, Lhingnei Haokip, said the trauma left her daughter with severe injuries, breathing problems, insomnia and mental health problems, Newslaundry reported.
“For the last two years, she lived in constant fear,” Haokip told the news outlet. “She used to tell me that she did not want to live anymore. Once, she told me that everyone knew what had happened to her and that she felt extremely vulnerable because of it.”
The Kuki-Zo community held a candlelight vigil in Churachandpur in her memory on Saturday.
At least 260 persons have been killed and more than 59,000 persons displaced since the ethnic clashes broke out between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo-Hmar communities in May 2023. There were periodic upticks in violence in 2024 and 2025.
In 2023, Scroll travelled to Manipur to interview Kuki women who faced extreme violence at the hands of the mobs, including the complainant who died.
Also Read: ‘Everyone should know what happened to us’: Four Kuki women recount brutal assaults they survived
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