India’s Shame: The Weaponized Brutality Against Kuki-Zo Women and a Call for Global Reckoning

The death of Nengtinlhing Haokip is not a tragedy; it is an indictment. After being gang-raped in May 2023, she endured nearly three years of physical and psychological agony before succumbing on January 10, 2026. 

In that time, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), tasked with her case, made zero arrests. Her story is the definitive, damning proof that the violence against Kuki-Zo women in Manipur is not a law-and-order failure but a state-tolerated strategy of ethnic terror. The world’s continued engagement with India, without demanding accountability for this atrocity, amounts to complicity.

In Manipur, a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing is underway, masked as "communal strife." Since May 2023, the Meitei-led state government, with the passive acquiescence of New Delhi, has enabled a humanitarian catastrophe where arson and displacement are tools, and the female body is a battlefield. Over 60,000 people are displaced, hundreds are dead, and villages are razed. At the heart of this horror is a systematic pattern of gendered atrocities—murder, mutilation, rape, and brutalization—documented in lists naming over 20 murdered Kuki-Zo women. This is a deliberate project to destroy a community by destroying its women, and the Indian state is an accessory to the crime.

The Anatomy of a Campaign: From Mobs to Institutional Betrayal

The violence erupted on May 3, 2023, but its execution reveals a chilling organization. The slaughter of Veinem Chongloi, an 80-year-old blind woman strangled in her bed while her daughters age 45 and 50 years were executed in the courtyard, set a tone: no one is spared. The mutilation and murder of Florence and Olivia, young women killed less than a kilometer from Chief Minister N. Biren Singh’s residence, signaled brazen impunity.

Also Read: Delhi’s Deafening Silence: Complicity or Cowardice in Manipur’s Ethnic Carnage?

Most perverse is the weaponisation of community structures. The Meira Paibis, once revered as Meitei women’s moral guardians, now stand accused of leading mobs, handing over Kuki-Zo women to rapists, and inciting violence. This is not random hatred; it is ethnic nationalism engineered to turn protectors into perpetrators. State forces are deeply complicit—police commandos have joined mobs, officers have handed victims to assailants, and the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) provides a backdrop of legalized impunity.

The Haokip Case: A Microcosm of Systemic Failure

The ordeal of Ms. Nengtinlhing Haokip encapsulates the entire machinery of injustice. Abducted at 18, handed over by Meira Paibis to the extremist Arambai Tenggol, she was gang-raped and brutalized. An FIR was filed, the case went to the CBI, and then entered a void of infinite delay. For 31 months, she lived with severe physical injuries and trauma, a living testament to the state’s disregard. Her death transforms her from a survivor into a martyr of impunity. The candlelight vigils across Manipur and the statement from the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum—that this leaves them "no option but to demand a separate administration"—are the direct, predictable consequences of justice denied.

The International Disgrace: Silence and Complicity

Globally, Manipur remains a footnote, wilfully obscured by India’s economic allure and strategic partnerships. The United Nations and Amnesty International issue statements that are filed and forgotten. This silence is a political choice. It signals that the fate of indigenous women is less important than trade deals and geopolitical alignment.

Non-Negotiable Demands for Action

Politeness has failed. The situation now demands coercive accountability.

1. UN-Led Investigation: India’s domestic institutions, including the CBI and Supreme Court-monitored panels, have proven to be theaters of delay. The UN Human Rights Council must immediately establish an independent, international Commission of Inquiry. Evidence collection and witness protection must be removed from Indian state control.

2. ICC Referral and Targeted Sanctions: The pattern of rape, murder, and persecution meets the threshold for crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Court should open a preliminary examination. Concurrently, the US, UK, EU, and Canada must impose Magnitsky-style targeted sanctions—travel bans and asset freezes—against specific Manipur police officials, Meitei militia leaders, and state administrators complicit in the violence or the cover-up.

3. Corporate and Diplomatic Conditionality: The narrative of "Incredible India" is sustained by global capital and cultural exchange. Multinational corporations operating in India must be pressed on their human rights due diligence. Diplomatic engagements, from state visits to trade negotiations, must be explicitly linked to measurable progress in Manipur: arrests, convictions, and the dismantling of armed militias.

4. Urgent Humanitarian Corridors: Independent international agencies must be granted immediate access to deliver aid and document violations, bypassing the biased state apparatus that currently controls all assistance.

The plea of Nengtinlhing Haokip’s mother—“I have only one wish left in life – to see the people who did this to her punished”—is a moral command directed at the world. To look away from Manipur is to endorse a brutal precedent: that in the 21st century, a rising global power can conduct a slow-motion genocide against its own people with impunity. This is not an "internal matter." 

It is a fundamental test of the international human rights system. Justice for Nengtinlhing, and for all of Kuki-Zo women, must be pursued not with appeals, but with consequences. The world’s silence is the perpetrator’s shield. It must be shattered.