In Manipur, A Man Is Burned In A Viral Video That The Government Claims Occurred On May 4
The Manipur government announced on Monday that the video of a man being burned, which leaked a day earlier, was of an incident that happened in the district of Kangpokpi, which is predominately Kuki, in early May.
Security advisor to the Manipur government Kuldiep Singh claimed during a news briefing in Imphal that the incident is connected to a previous viral video of two Kuki women being paraded naked and raped.
The seven-second video showed a man lying down next to barbed wire with burn marks on some of his body and was wearing a black top and camouflage pants. Gunshots can be heard in the distance, as well as the voices of persons who are ostensibly standing close to him.
It’s unclear if the individual was already dead when he was burned, or if he was burned while still alive. Laldinthanga Khongsai, a 37-year-old inhabitant of Paokongching hamlet in the Kangpokpi district, goes by the name of the person in the video, according to Singh.
He said that the incident reportedly happened on May 4, which was the day after the start of the ethnic hostilities. According to Singh, the victim, a Kuki, is currently lying in the morgue at Imphal’s Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences.
The DGP has asked that this case be turned over to the CBI because it is a follow-up to the viral event in which two people were slain and two women were displayed in their underwear, according to Singh.
A video of two women being paraded by a sizable mob while naked surfaced in July, and one of the women was later accused of being gang raped, prompting considerable condemnation. Seven people connected to the incident had been detained by the police, and the CBI took over the investigation of the case in August.
Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), a Kuki organization, responded to the video by calling the incident “shocking and barbaric” and accusing the state administration of being “selective in the application of justice.”
The ITLF stated in a statement made public on Monday that “the video is a horrifying testament to the ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kuki-Zo community by the majority Meiteis.”
