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New Delhi: A Kuki woman who was kidnapped and gangraped in the state capital, Imphal, during the peak of the Kuki-Meitei ethnic clashes, has died. Her family claims that their daughter never fully recovered from the trauma that she went through during the May 2023 assault and died of both mental and physical illness. She could not get justice during her lifetime, cried her family.
According to the deceased's family members the woman never recovered from the deep shock and the physical injuries she suffered during the assault, reported NDTV. She was reportedly abducted by 4 Meitei men and was taken to Langgol where she was raped. Later she was abandoned in Bishnupur and left to die.
The woman managed to file a police complaint nearly 2 months after the assault, in July 2023. In her complaint to the police, she said that she had been kidnapped by 4 armed men, wearing black shirts. They reportedly took her to the hilly areas, where 3 of them took turns to rape her. Members of the Meitei group, Arambai Tenggol, are known to wear black shirts.
An organisation working for the Kukis claimed that members of the Meira Paibi handed over the 20-year-old woman to the Meiteis.
The woman told the police that she was kidnapped in a white Bolero by four men. Three of the men, started raping her inside the moving car itself, only the man who was at the wheels did not rape her, she said.
The woman claimed that she was kept in captivity the whole night and not given anything to eat. Then in the morning, she said that on the pretext of going to the washroom, she had the kidnappers remove her blindfold and looked around to understand where she was. She soon understood that she was in the hills and then very discreetly managed to escape from the clutches of her perpetrators.
The woman then managed to reach Kangpokpi,from where she was moved to a hospital in Kohima, in neighbouring Nagaland. Though she managed to survive, the trauma that she suffered made her mentally sick.
Following her death, the woman's family was left heartbroken. Her mother described her as a lively person, but following the assault she started having many physical issues. She said that her daughter suffered breathing difficulties as a result of the assault on her in 2023.
Her mother said that her daughter was not very interested in academics, but worked at a beauty parlour owned by a relative in Imphal. She said that after the tragedy, the woman simply lost her smile and started suffering from several physical ailments.
The Churachandpur-based Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum is going to hold a candlelight vigil in memory of the young woman. They said that though she survived, she definitely suffered severe psychological trauma, physical injuries and had uterine complications, following the assault, which ultimately led to her death on January 10, 2026.
