Referring to the reports that women who were shown in the video were handed over to the rioting crowd in Manipur by the cops, the Supreme Court termed it as “horrendous”. “Women shown in Manipur video were handed over to rioting crowd by police, this is horrendous,” the bench headed by CJI DY Chandrachud said.

Coming down heavily on the Manipur government and the police, the Supreme Court bench demanded to know what took 14 days for the police to register a zero FIR when the incident took place on May 4. “What were the police doing from May 4 to May 18? The incident came to light that women are being paraded naked and at least two were raped. What were the police doing?” the court asked.

To this, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta says that the government has nothing to hide. “This court can monitor the situation,” he said.

CJI DY Chandrachud also noted that the Manipur incident was not a situation like Nirbhaya. “…this is not a situation like Nirbhaya which was one rape committed – that was also horrific but it was isolated. Here we are dealing with systemic violence which IPC recognises as a separate offence.”

“So to restore a sense of faith in the administration, a court-appointed team has its own message to send that the highest appointed court is deeply concerned- it will send officers with no political alignment,” he said.

The Supreme Court also demanded to know what package is the Centre providing to Manipur for rehabilitation. “We would also want to know package for rehabilitation being provided to state for affected people. Inform us what kind of legal aid you are providing to victims,” it said.

The top court also said it would like to know how many people have been arrested so far and how many zero FIRs have been registered in Manipur while stressing that the time was running out. “There is a great need to have healing touch in state,” it said.

Updated: 31 Jul 2023, 04:49 PM IST