Why Can’t We Compare Manipur’s Incident with Other States?

Why Can’t We Compare Manipur‘s Incident with Other States?

Indukamal Bhuyan

We can’t compare Manipur’s horrific incident with the other cases which is happening in India, as this is happening in Manipur only because of the ethnic conflict between two groups, Kuki and Meitei.

Manipur has been burning since 3 month and the state’s response is less. 

PM Modi, who was busy in his foreign visit during this period, participating in election rallies in many parts of India, he didn’t even appeal to maintain peace in Manipur. He didn’t even give a single tweet, and as a result, people are furious in that region.

People demand peace. Internet has been banned for the last two months. More than 150 people were dead in that horrible conflict. More than 5000 people were homeless.

But even after that no mainstream media has covered it strongly. Manipuri people protested in the capital city of India. But no single reply was given to them.

Two teams of MLA’s from Manipur wanted to meet PM Modi, but no permission was granted to them. On 29th of May, Home Minister of India visited Manipur, and stayed there for 2 days. But nothing changed.

The conflict was nowhere seen to be resolved. 5000 houses were burned. People used to stay in the shelter camp. Women were shot dead in front of a school. Many modern weapon were being robbed from the Armed forces by militants. 

Rahul Gandhi, the opposition leader visited Manipur on 30th June. But he was not allowed to visit the places in the state by road. He appealed for peace. 

Because of Internet shutdown, many cases couldn’t come into the focus. A video came into focus on 20th July where it was seen that the women were paraded naked by some men, and molested.  Report says, Women were gang raped and one of them were killed, and that the video was from 2 May, 2023.

After that incident, the victim filed an FIR but not a single action were taken at that exact time. But, later when the video surfaced online and went viral, 4 people were arrested. But there were more than 900 people who were parading the women in that incident, and who are yet to be put to trial.

Report says, this incident took place because of a fake news that a Meitei woman was raped and killed by Kuki Militant. But that was not true. After that, as a revenge, Meitei people stripped the Kuki women in that inhumane incident.

Scroll, a news agency reported that, the victim said “The Police were with the mob, They left us with those men”. Another report by The Indian Express said, the women were forcibly taken away from police by mob.

But the thing is that even after 2 months, the victims didn’t even get justice. The accused are not arrested. So question arise – Why did it take more than two month for the culprits to be arrested?

The culprits were arrested after the video went viral. On a telephonic interview with India Today, CM of Manipur stated that there are hundreds of cases like that in Manipur during this violence. It creates more questions. 

Modi speaks after 79 days of silence. But his speech created controversy because he compared Manipur cases with the Congress ruled Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh’s rape cases.

But he forgot that, according to the Police, one of the accused arrested in Dalit minors gang rape in front of her boyfriend in Jodhpur is Dharmpal Singh, associated with the BJP’s Student wing ABVP. The accused were campaigning for a student leader running for students’ union president at JNVU as an ABVP candidate. 

Another thing is that after 79 days, PM Modi broke his silence on Manipur but he didn’t even say about the terrible violence. He didn’t even appeal a single word to maintain peace in Manipur. Hence, his 30 seconds speech was compared with crocodiles tears.

So, can we compare Manipur’s situation with other states?

Is there any similar incident happening in other states since the last 3 month?

If not, why BJP government is trying to divert the issue of Manipur?

Can’t PM Modi come to Manipur now amidst this violence just how he travels campaigning the entire state around during elections?

He should answer these questions.

Images from different sources

Mahabahu.com is an Online Magazine with collection of premium Assamese and English articles and posts with cultural base and modern thinking.  You can send your articles to editor@mahabahu.com / editor@mahabahoo.com (For Assamese article, Unicode font is necessary)