Mother of 3 raped, killed in Manipur, 17 homes torched
A 31-year-old tribal mother of three was allegedly raped and burned to death in her village home in India’s Manipur’s Jiribam district late Thursday by armed intruders who terrorised the settlement with indiscriminate gunfire, looting and arson that left 17 dwellings gutted.An FIR based on a complaint filed by the victim’s husband with Jiribam police mentions “rape and murder based on racial and communal grounds” after “criminal trespass”. The assailants, suspected to be from the valley, hadn’t been identified until late Friday, Times of India reports.
Slain woman’s husband claims sexual assault
The man said his wife was “brutally murdered” after being sexually assaulted at “our residence” in Zairawn village, reviving the horrors of the first few weeks of the ethnic conflict last year, marked by mobs hounding, stripping and raping women at several places in Manipur.
Police said they would send the woman’s charred body to Silchar in neighbouring Assam for forensic tests. Jiribam SP informed the district magistrate that although the state capital had autopsy and forensic facilities, it was “very much inconvenient to transport the body from Jirbam to Imphal by road via NH-37 due to the ongoing ethnic crisis”.
“This barbaric act serves as yet another chilling reminder of the relentless ethniccleansing campaign,” said Hmar Inpui, the apex organisation of the Hmar tribe.
The Indigenous Tribes Advocacy Committee of Pherzawl and Jiribam requested central intervention to safeguard the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar people of the twin tribal-dominant districts.
The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum, a conglomerate of tribal communities of Churachandpur, issued a statement demanding the immediate arrest of those responsible for the crime.
The alleged rape, murder, arson and pillage in Jiribam broke a two-month-long lull in violence. A gunfight in the district on Sept 7 led to six deaths.
In Oct, ministry of home affairs summoned MLAs of the BJP-led coalition representing the Meitei, Kuki and Naga communities to Delhi for what was meant to be the first step towards conciliatory talks to end the strife in Manipur.
