AGENCIES / WEB DESK
A Kargil War veteran, the husband of one of the Manipur video incident survivors, said though he went to the war, his own place has become more dangerous than the battlefield.
The husband of one of two women paraded naked and molested by a group of men in Manipur is a Kargil war veteran who rued that though he protected the country but could not save his wife from being humiliated.
The husband of one of the women, in her fifties, has recounted the horror his wife went through on May 4 when a mob of hundreds of men assaulted her and paraded her naked. The ordeal went on for two to three hours, he said.
A Kargil War veteran, the husband of one of the Manipur incident survivors, said though he went to the war, his own place has become more dangerous than the battlefield. He also rued that he protected his country but couldn’t save his own wife from being humiliated.
Speaking with the Times of India, he said that his wife has been struggling to come back to normal. “She is struggling to come back to normal. I have seen war, fought on the frontline in Kargil. Now I find my own place more dangerous than the battlefield,” he was quoted as saying.
His wife, who has been living in a relief camp since she managed to escape, recalled that the women were made to dance in front of the mob. “We two women were made to strip at gunpoint in front of thousands of men. They threatened to kill us if we did not do so. They made us dance and shoved us,” the woman said.
The incident which sparked condemnation countrywide came to light when a video shot on May 4 surfaced on Wednesday, July 19, over two months after it happened, triggering protests and uproar among the masses. The video showed two women, disrobed, being held, paraded and assaulted by hundreds of men and being taken to a field. One of them was allegedly gang-raped.
“I fought for the nation in the Kargil war and was also in Sri Lanka as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force. I protected the nation but am dejected that after my retirement, I could not protect my home, my wife and fellow villagers… I am sad, depressed,” he told a Hindi news channel.
He said that on the fateful May 4 morning, a mob burnt down several houses in the locality, disrobed the two women and made them walk on the village paths in front of people. “Police were present but took no action. I want that all those people who burnt the houses and humiliated the women get exemplary punishment,” he said.
Four people have been arrested in connection with the case on Thursday, a day after the video surfaced.
At least four persons have been arrested for parading three women of Kuki naked and allegedly gang-raping one of them in Manipur’s Thoubal amid the ethnic clashes between two tribes.