GUWAHATI: A 31-year-old tribal mother was allegedly raped and burnt to death in her house in Manipur’s Jiribam district on Thursday evening by armed intruders who terrorized the settlement with indiscriminate gunfire, looting and arson, which they destroyed 17 homes.
An FIR based on a complaint filed by the victim’s husband with the Jiribam police mentions “rape and murder on racial and communal grounds” after “criminal trespass”. The attackers, suspected to be from the valley, had not been identified till Friday evening.
The husband of the murdered woman claims sexual assault
The man said his wife was “brutally murdered” after being sexually assaulted at “our residence” in the village of Zairawn, reliving the horrors of the early weeks of last year’s ethnic conflict, marked by mobs hunting, stripping and raping women in several places. in Manipur.
Police said they would send the charred body of the woman to Silchar in neighboring Assam for forensic tests. Jiribam SP informed the district magistrate that though the state capital has post-mortem and forensic facilities, it is “very inconvenient to transport the body from Jirbam to Imphal by road on NH-37 due to the ongoing ethnic crisis”.
“This barbaric act serves as another horrifying reminder of the relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing,” said Hmar Inpui, the peak organization of the Hmar tribe.
The Indigenous Tribes of Pherzawl and Jiribam Advocacy Committee has called for central intervention to protect the Kuki-Zomi-Hmar people of the twin tribal-dominated districts. The Forum of Indigenous Tribal Leaders, a conglomerate of tribal communities in Churachandpur, issued a statement demanding the immediate arrest of those responsible for the murder.
The alleged rape, murder, arson and robbery in Jiribam broke a two-month lull in violence. A gun battle in the district on September 7 left six dead.
In October, the Home Ministry summoned MPs from the BJP-led coalition representing the Meitei, Kuki and Naga communities to Delhi for what was supposed to be the first step towards reconciliation talks to end the conflict in Manipur.