India’s top court has set up a three member panel of retired high court women judges to oversee investigations into the deadly violence in the northeastern state of Manipur.
(Bloomberg) — India’s top court has set up a three member panel of retired high court women judges to oversee investigations into the deadly violence in the northeastern state of Manipur.
The panel will also look into various humanitarian issues arising from the violence in Manipur that left more than 150 dead and 50,000 people displaced.
A Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, asked for high-ranked police officials from different Indian states to be deputed to the Central Bureau of Investigation — a federal agency that is now probing the cases of sexual assault during the clashes — to instill a sense of faith and objectivity. During the course of the hearing, survivors of sexual assault had alleged that Manipur police officials had failed to protect the women from a mob.
A video of two women being paraded naked, before they were allegedly raped, surfaced last month and brought renewed attention to the ethnic violence in Manipur. The violence centers around tensions between the area’s minority tribal groups and majority Meitei Hindus over access to jobs, land and spots at educational institutions under affirmative action policies.
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