After politics and police have failed — a roadmap to heal Manipur

An edgy calm prevails in Manipur as it awaits an uncertain future. Families mourn their loved ones as sporadic violence continues. Thousands have been displaced. Broken houses, vandalised shops and roads littered with rubble wear a ghostly look. A pall of gloom hangs heavy with trenches and barbed wires demarcating the Kuki and Meiti strongholds. The dialogue on the No-Confidence Motion in Parliament froze on both sides and emerged as yet another political stand-off. The spat between Assam Rifles and state police spits more venom into the air as the state struggles to implement a slew of directives handed out by the Supreme Court (SC) on August 10.

Around 6,500 FIRs describe a tale of grisly violence. The SC in one of the severest indictments of a state government described the situation as a complete collapse of law and order. Dishonouring women in sectarian strife was a clear violation of the constitutional guarantee of human dignity. An all-women committee of three former judges will file a report on the atrocities against women and also oversee efforts to compensate and rehabilitate them. Doubting further the capability of the state, the SC has said that 42 Special Investigation teams are to be supervised by six DIGs from outside the state. The CBI will investigate serious crimes against women and the overall investigation will be monitored by a retired DGP.

The SC was shocked at the crime committed on two innocent women on May 4 in Kangpokpi district. The state abdicated its responsibility and politics was subsumed by ethnic loyalties and vested interests. No collector and SP can be spared when mass rapes occur in their district, and they don’t react with alacrity. Worse, the police party from which the hapless group was snatched did not file an FIR the same day and no one pursued the matter. This was a grave charge in itself and created grounds for dismissal. But, when the FIR was lodged a few days later, the matter still remained frozen. This is bound to happen when policemen and politicians abjure their duty and profess ethnic loyalties to become community heroes. Another ghastly crime against two women working in Imphal car wash the next day, met with the same state response. Compounding the horror was the active participation of women in the attacking mob.