New Delhi: On August 1, Women in Governance, India (WGI) received a status report from the Government of Manipur in the Supreme Court. The WGI had filed a petition seeking answers from the N. Biren Singh government regarding incidents of crimes against women during the Meitei-Kuki clashes in Manipur, which have killed 150 since May 3.The concern that the petition tried to raise was that since the clashes broke out, the government has failed to bring an end to the violence, restore peace and ensure protection of life and properties of citizens in the strife torn state.The petition by WGI has also argued that in this ongoing ethnic violence, there is evidence of targeted sexual violence directed against women’s bodies, particularly Scheduled Tribe women from the Kuki-Zo community.After a video of three women being paraded naked went viral, Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh had said that there were ‘100s of such cases’ all-around Manipur, where women were being harassed and raped. However, he did not say what precisely his government was doing to ensure justice in these cases.On July 31, the Supreme Court had also asked the state government to provide a complete break-up of the “approximately 5995 First Information Reports [FIRs]” the Manipur government claimed to have registered during the ethnic clashes in the State, including cases of murder, rape, arson, crimes against women, burning of villages, homes and places of worship.As of July 4, the petition has argued that the violence has resulted in the death of approximately 142 people and the displacement of approximately 55,000 people.Also read: Who Gains and Who Loses? A Report From ManipurThe status report presented in court also mentions the viral video case – stating that the two women were gang-raped and their father and brother were killed by a mob on May 4. While the Zero FIR in this case was filed on May 18 – 14 days after the incident – it was only on July 24 that the victims’ statements were recorded by the police.National Federation of Indian Women’s General Secretary and CPI leader Annie Raja, who was also part of a ‘fact-finding committee’ to probe the ground reality of the ethnic conflict in Manipur, told The Wire that a lot of violence and deaths could have been avoided, had the government intervened on time. “Our report also clearly spells that the government had an agenda in the conflict, to pit the two communities at loggerheads so that they refuse to coexist. In Manipur, we could see that Meitei women themselves had become part of the crimes against Kuki women, alongside men. It is a major failure of the government which is visible in the kind of brutality Kuki women have experienced,” Raja said.In its review of the government’s status report and the writ petition, The Wire has learnt about the gravity of crimes that women have faced during the three-month-long and continuing ethnic tensions.The status report discloses several cases where women have been at the receiving end of sexual violence. In one of the several cases mentioned, in a case of gang-rape and murder of two women in Imphal East on May 4, there has been no arrest till date; nor has there been any detention in another case of gang-rape where an 18-year-old woman came forward to narrate the ordeal herself.In her complaint at the Kangpokpi police station, the 18-year-old described how she was first abducted and assaulted by four men in Imphal East on May 15. According to the status report, three men raped her there. In her complaint filed at the Kangpokpi Police Station, she has detailed how she was abducted and tortured by at least 4-5 men who hit with the butt of their guns. They issued multiple threats of rape and murder while scouting for a location to kill her. She begged them to spare her and promised the men that she will never return to Imphal if they let her go and she just wants to meet her parents. She was later dragged out of the car, physically assaulted and gang raped.She filed a complaint at P.S. Kangpokpi on July 21, pursuant to which a Zero FIR was registered on 21.07.2023 under Secs. 376; 376D; 354; 307; 364; 506; 43 IPC and Sec 3 of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. However, the petition claims that she has not been contacted by the police and has received no updates on the investigation or arrests. She has also not received any compensation from the government. She is currently staying at the Leicob relief camp with her family. She is very weak, traumatised and requires psychological counselling. The family also requires urgent rehabilitation since their house in Imphal was destroyed.In another case, two Kuki-Zo women who were out on May 4 for work lost contact with their families later in the afternoon and could not be contacted later. Later, the family of these women learnt from a medical staffer that the two women aged 24 and 21 were gangraped allegedly by a Meitei mob. The family also learnt from a co-worker of these women that they were attacked by a mob of 100 Meitei men, who came to their place of work, demanding to know the whereabouts of the two Kuki-Zo women who worked there. The two women were dragged into a room where for almost two hours they were tortured, raped and subsequently murdered by the mob of Meiti men. While they have heard unverified reports that a postmortem has been conducted, no government official has contacted them to provide clear and accurate information. The informational vacuum that the families of the victims are living in has intensified their anguish and despair.That situations of conflict exacerbate and amplify the gender-based violence faced by women as their bodies are perceived as repositories of community “honour” has been well documented. In the present situation, women from the minority, tribal and marginalised Kuki-Zo community, viewed as the “other”, were targeted by mobs of the dominant community, the petition has argued.The petitioner, WGI, founded in 2009, is a network of academics, social workers and women’s rights activists who have been engaging actively on issues impacting the lives of women, more particularly the security of women in the conflict prone regions in the states of North East and strengthening the capacity of grassroot women leaders, with a focus on empowering Dalit and Adivasi women.This continuing violence, the petition said, has taken a heavy toll, resulting in the tragic loss of life, physical assaults and injuries, destruction of homes and property, internal displacement with many fleeing their villages and homes to save their lives, loss of livelihood and employment, disruption of health and education facilities, and a deep rupture in society along ethnic lines.