Massive Protests In Imphal Demand CBI Probe Into Alleged Gang-Rape

Women groups held peaceful protests across Manipur's capital Imphal today demanding the arrest of the accused in the alleged gang-rape case of a 37-year-old woman in Churachandpur.

The protesters demanded the centre to let the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) take the case.

NDTV reported on Thursday how the woman from Manipur's Churachandpur district alleged she was caught by a group of men - while she was fleeing from her burning house with her two sons, niece and sister-in-law - and gang-raped on May 3, the day violence broke out in the state.

"We demand justice in gang-rape cases. Whether the accused are Kukis or Meiteis, we want capital punishment for them," Longiam Bina, an Imphal resident who participated in the protest, told NDTV.

"We saw reports of the gang-rape case on the first day of the violence. We demand a CBI investigation," another Imphal resident M Velinda said.

The woman, a mother of two boys, in the first information report (FIR) said she mustered the courage to go to the police after seeing reports of women speaking up about the horrors they went through.

She is now living in a relief camp for internally displaced people. The case has been filed under Sections 376D, 354, 120B and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

According to the FIR, at 6.30 pm on May 3, miscreants started burning the woman and her neighbour's houses, after which she, her two sons, niece and sister-in-law ran as fast as they could.

"I carried my niece on my back and also held my two sons and started running from the spot along with my sister-in-law. She was also carrying a baby on her back and running ahead of me. Then I stumbled and fell down on the road and unable to get up... my sister-in-law came back running towards me and picked up my niece from my back and ran along with my two sons as I insisted," the woman said in the 'zero FIR' filed in Bishnupur, 35 km from her now-destroyed house in Churachandpur.

"When I finally managed to get up, some five-six... miscreants got hold of me... They started verbally abusing and assaulting me. Despite my resistance, I was forcefully pinned down. After this, the men started sexually assaulting me..." the woman said in the FIR.

A 'zero FIR' can be filed at any police station, not necessarily at a police station under whose jurisdiction the crime happened. The police station where the case has been filed has to send the FIR to the correct jurisdiction, which will then investigate it, in this case the police station in Churachandpur.