Manipur Woman Paraded Naked: 'Wouldn't Have Happened If Centre Intervened,' Says Irom Sharmila

Civil rights activist Irom Sharmila Chanu who went on a hunger strike for 16 years against Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Manipur said the horrific incident of two women being paraded naked by a mob in Manipur wouldn't have happened had the Centre had intervened.

In a message to the people of ethnic strife-torn Manipur, activist Irom Sharmila asks them to be humane and urges them to leave the path of barbarism and hatred. Known as the "Iron Lady," Irom Sharmila had gone on a hunger strike for nearly 16 years to protest against the misuse of the Armed Forces Special Power Act (AFSPA), till one day, she walked away and began her life with Desmond, a British Indian, in Bengaluru.

Feeling "sorry and sad" about the incident wherein two women were paraded naked in the Manipur, Sharmila said it wouldn't have happened had the Centre intervened "at the right time," according to a report by NDTV.  "I can speak from my own experience. In my 16-year long hunger strike, when I did not even drink water, I was reduced to a symbol. Despite my struggles, I felt that people would view me as “just a woman’’. I felt like the state’s (Manipur’s) property. That is the kind of attitude people have towards women," she wrote in the Indian Express. 

Days after ethnic violence erupted in Manipur, Sharmila on May 6 requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to visit her home state “to understand the problem” and “address them”. “If the Centre wants India’s real integrity and wants an united India, they must bridge the gap between people from the rest of India and the northeastern states. There is still discrimination, and looking down on the people from northeastern states,” she said.

Tension mounted in the hills of Manipur after a May 4 video surfaced online on Wednesday showing two women from one of the warring communities in the state's Kangpokpi district paraded naked by a mob from the other side.