Skip to main content

News of mob’s sexual violence in Manipur delayed due to BJP blocking internet access

Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) statement condemning horrific attacks on Kuki-Zomi women in Manipur
***
The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) has strongly condemned the vicious sexual violence against Kuki women which transpired on May 4 in India’s northeastern state of Manipur. As part of a broader unfolding conflict between Meiteis and Kuki-Zomi tribals which has left an estimated 130 dead and 35,000 displaced, enraged mobs of Meitei men forced several Kuki women to take off their clothes, then proceeded to gangrape a 21-year-old woman, and murder her brother. The attack was captured on video, and went viral on social media platforms earlier this week.
“Indian Americans of conscience must raise their voices to oppose the brutal violence in Manipur,” said Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of IAMC. “These attacks on Kuki women are a harrowing reminder of the divisiveness embedded in the heart of Indian politics by its current sectarian, Hindu-supremacist regime. Prime Minister Modi’s silence until now has added fuel to the flames in Manipur.”
In addition to the May 4 attack, the violence in Manipur has resulted in the destruction of tens of thousands of homes and hundreds of churches. Kuki-Zomi Christians, the politically weaker minority in Manipur, have borne the brunt of the violence. Victims of the conflict allege that state police have stood by while their weapons were raided and used to arm militant groups.
News of the mob’s vicious sexual violence was initially delayed due to the local governing party, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, blocking internet access in the region.
“The coordinated sexual violence and the indifference of the state we are seeing today recall the gang-rapes of Muslim women which transpired during the Gujarat pogrom of 2002, and which have recurred with startling regularity ever since,” said IAMC President Mohammed Jawad. “The root causes of the pogrom then and now are the same: the divisive, religious nationalist ideology propagated by the ruling BJP and its ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).”
The Indian government has opposed international pressure to intervene and prevent further violence. Earlier this month, the Indian government criticized a statement from the European Parliament tying the violence to, “politically motivated, divisive policies promoting Hindu majoritarianism”, calling it “unacceptable interference.”
“Indian Americans must mobilize to provide humanitarian relief to the tens of thousands displaced in Manipur and to pressure American politicians to do the same,” said Mohammed Jawad.

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

From margins to microphones: The rise of Dalit hip-hop in India

By Tersina Maria Toppo*  A protest does not always arrive as a slogan shouted from a street corner. Sometimes, it arrives on a beat. A microphone replaces the megaphone, a music video becomes a public square, and the smartphone becomes the space where a history once pushed to the margins is narrated, debated, and shared.
2 comments
»

Xi Jinping’s visit to USA: Recognition that China can't be contained?

By Vijay Prashad   President Xi Jinping’s forthcoming visit to the United States must be understood as more than an encounter between two heads of state, but it must be seen as an encounter between two possible futures. In one future, the United States imposes a spiral of confrontation against China. Trade disputes harden into economic warfare, then economic warfare intensifies into technological blockades, technological blockades produce military encirclement, and finally military encirclement creates incidents, and incidents the danger of becoming an unimaginable war.
Post a Comment
»

The donation trail: From American schools to churches and temples

By Rajiv Shah The other day, I was talking with a non-resident Indian (NRI) in a middle-level city off the eastern coast of the United States. The tête-à-tête took place as we were returning from a religious ceremony at a well-established Hindu temple, where several hundred NRIs had participated, many of them actively.
1 comment
»