A victim has described her harrowing ordeal after she and another Christian woman were allegedly paraded naked and sexually assaulted by a mob of apparently Hindu men in Manipur, northeast India, where ethnic violence has flared in recent months.
Horrific video showing two naked women being dragged down a road as they are groped by the men, before they were allegedly raped in a field, has sparked fury across the country.
The victims are reported to be two women from the Christian Kuki tribe aged in their 20s and 60s, and are now safe in a refugee camp following the vile assaults, which took place in early May.
One woman told Associated Press: ‘They forced us to remove our clothes and said we will be killed if we don’t do as told. Then they made us walk naked. They abused us. They touched us everywhere … on our breasts, our genitals.’
The father and brother of the younger woman were bludgeoned to death as they tried to protect her from the violent mob, The Times reports officials in the northeastern state as having said.
It comes as women in the state set fire to the house of a prime suspect in the attack amid angry protests gripping the nation.
The remote state of Manipur has been in the grips of a near-civil war since May, which has left 130 dead and seen mobs rampage through villages killing people and torching houses.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke two months of silence after the video went viral to condemn the brutal assault, saying it has ‘shamed India’ and that the ‘guilty will not be spared’.
‘What has happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven,’ Modi said in his first comments on ethnic clashes in the remote state that is ruled by his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
‘My heart is filled with pain and anger. The incident from Manipur that has come to the fore is shameful for any civilised nation,’ he said, as he urged chief ministers to strengthen law enforcement.
Hours after Modi promised tough action, the main suspect, a resident of Manipur state, was arrested on Thursday.
Three others were also arrested and a police official said they were tracing at least 30 others involved in the crime.
Read More: ‘They made us walk naked, they abused us, they touched us everywhere’
