SIPHRO

Aizawl, May 12, 2006

Parbung and Lungthulien are two small villages in Tipaimukh sub-division, Churachandpur District of Manipur where people belonging to the Hmar tribe lived. This area, for sometime, has been infested by militants of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and the Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), and they had been harassing and torturing the villagers and extorting ransom in cash and kind from them.

On the night of January 16, 2006, about 18 militants, armed with sophisticated weapons, surrounded the villages of Lungthulien, dragged the villagers to a central place and proceeded to beat them up mercilessly. About 402 were beaten and tortured, and 15 girls between 12 and 30 years were raped or molested. The villagers were so terrorized that in the early morning of January 17th 2006, many of them, including women and children left the village and escaped to Mizoram, where about 650 of them have been accommodated from that time in camps set up by the Mizoram Government at Sakawrdai.

Although belatedly, armed forces had been posted both in Lungthulien and Parbung and adjoining villages where also the militants had been operating. The villagers are still too traumatized and scared to go back to their villages. Their housed were extensively damaged. They have left behind their livestock and jhum fields so that there is an impending fear of hunger and food crisis.

It has since also come out that the militants had been camping at Parbung and conducting their atrocities on the people since the 6th of January 2006.

And in Parbung also, 10 girls, some of them minors, had been raped and several villagers were severely assaulted. One boy, whose two sisters were sexually assaulted was shot dead in his bed on the night of the 6th of January 2006. On the 20th January 2006, the Indian army entered Parbung and flushed out the militants. Since then, the army has been stationed at Parbung and Lungthulien. But in several of these adjoining areas, there are still some reports of militant operation.

The inaccessibility of the place where Parbung and Lungthulien are situated makes it difficult for the villagers to communicate with the rest of the world. Even as it is, the minimum facilities of civic life, such as electricity, water, primary health center, telephone and mobile phone connectivity are unavailable to them. The Police Station in Parbung has one OC but no constables. The tortured and raped villagers have had hardly any medical treatment. The first FIRs could only be lodged in the first week of February 2006.

All the help that has reached the villagers so far – from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund, the District Commissioner, the MPs, and the MLAs – has been late in coming and completely inadequate. Even after four months from the incident, no rehabilitation schemes, in accordance with the SC/STs Prevention of Atrocities Acts has been decided upon.

The Hmar Women Association and the Hmar Students’ Association have been raising these issues at various quarters. They also approached the National Commission for Women and Malini Bhattacharya representing the Commission visited the two villages on the 10th and 11th of May 2006 and also the refugees at Sakawrdau Camp on the 12th May 2006. She was accompanied by the representatives of the Hmar Women Association – Mrs. J. L. Sawmi and Mrs. D. Varry, the Hmar Students’ Association – Mr. Alan L. Thiek and Lalthansangn Pulamte, Ms. Biaki, Deputy Director, Department of Social Welfare, Government of Mizoram, Mr. Lalzirmawia Chhangte, SDO, Sakawrdai and Mr. Sharma, SDO, Tipaimukh sub-division. They found that the girls who were raped and molested were still in a state of acute physical and mental trauma. They were completely without any medical treatment and without any kind of rehabilitation. Many of them who had bright careers ahead of them have had their lives completely disrupted. Some of them do not even want to stay in their villages or in Manipur.

The Government initiated an inquiry commission on this incident of mass rape headed by retired Justice Rajkhowa, and the hearing was conducted between 18 to 26 of April 2006. The Commission has already finished the task of taking evidence and cases of rape and molestation are being investigated by the SDPO, Churachandpur.

The independent enquiry of the National Commission for Women, which had taken the evidence of twenty one victim girls, as well as seventeen other villagers from Lungthulien and Parbung will also very soon be sending its recommendations to the Central Government and State Government.

In the meantime, however, it is absolutely urgent that medical treatment and relief should reach the victims and complete rehabilitation schemes should be provided.

Malini Bhattacharya
Member
National Commission for Women