While charges include murder, gang-rape and atrocities under the SC/ST Act, the prolonged delay has already inflicted deep harm on survivors and weakened public faith in the justice system dealing with Manipur violence.
BY PC Bureau
January 9, 2026: Yesterday’s announcement that a special CBI court in Guwahati has finally framed charges in the Manipur gang-rape and murder case should have offered the nation some reassurance. Instead, it has reopened a disturbing question: why did India’s justice system take more than two years to reach even this most basic milestone in one of the most heartrending crimes in recent memory?
Few incidents have shaken the country’s collective conscience as deeply as the atrocity that unfolded on May 4, 2023, during ethnic violence in Manipur. Three women were stripped naked and paraded before a mob; two were allegedly gang-raped; family members of one victim were brutally killed. It was violence designed not just to harm bodies, but to annihilate dignity.
The crime did not come to light through swift policing or institutional vigilance. It surfaced months later when a video — raw, humiliating and devastating — went viral on social media. Only then did outrage erupt across the country. Political leaders condemned the act, institutions promised action, and the state assured justice.
And yet, justice did not arrive. It limped.
More than two years after the crime, a special court has now framed charges against six accused — not a conviction, not even the commencement of trial, but merely the formal acknowledgment that the accused must face prosecution. For the survivors and their families, this delay is not procedural. It is cruel.
A Heinous Crime and Question
‘𝘗𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘋𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘛𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘣’
The woman witness said that the mob told her that “in Lamka area, your people raped my people, therefore, we are going to do the same to you people.”
“…one of them raised his axe… pic.twitter.com/tMtmRxwcGe
— তন্ময় l T͞anmoy l (@tanmoyofc) July 30, 2023
READ: Court Frames Charges Against Lalu Yadav in Land-for-Jobs Case
READ: Bengal Political Drama Shifts to Delhi as TMC MPs Detained Outside Shah’s Office
The court has framed charges on 15 counts, including murder, gang-rape, assault with intent to disrobe, rioting, promoting enmity between communities, and serious offences under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The legal language is severe, matching the gravity of the crime. The human reality behind it is far more harrowing.
Special judge Chatra Bhukan Gogoi has recorded that there is “prima facie material” against all the accused, noting that the evidence leads to an “unerring conclusion”. That observation raises a troubling question: if the evidence was strong enough to be described as unerring, why did it take two years for the system to say so?
Delay in cases of mass sexual violence is not a neutral administrative failure. It actively harms survivors. Time dulls memory, weakens witnesses, intensifies trauma and drains public attention. Two of the accused are already out on bail; four remain lodged in a Manipur jail. All have pleaded not guilty and claimed trial. The next hearing is scheduled for January 16, with the accused required to appear in person. Even now, justice inches forward at a pace that mocks the urgency such crimes demand.
The court record contains chilling details. A woman witness has stated that the mob justified its actions by invoking revenge linked to ethnic identity — a grim reminder of how sexual violence is weaponised during communal conflict. This was not random brutality; it was targeted, calculated and symbolic.
The Manipur case exposes a deeper institutional malaise. Accountability followed public shame, not institutional reflex. Had the video not surfaced, one is forced to ask whether the crime would have remained buried — another unrecorded horror in a conflict zone.
India often speaks of zero tolerance for crimes against women, of fast-track courts, victim-centric justice and deterrence. But these promises ring hollow when a case of this magnitude spends two years entangled in preliminaries. Speed does not mean compromising fairness; it means recognising that delay itself becomes injustice.
Justice delayed is not merely justice denied. It is justice distorted.
This case reflects a layered failure of the state: the breakdown of law and order during ethnic violence, the failure to protect vulnerable communities, the silence that followed, and finally, the glacial movement of the justice system. The invocation of the SC/ST Act underscores the caste and tribal dimensions of the crime — a reminder that violence in India often intersects with identity, power and historical oppression.
The question now is no longer only whether the accused will be punished. It is whether the system itself will be held accountable for its lethargy.
Will this trial move with the urgency it deserves? Will witnesses be protected? Or will political convenience, procedural caution and fading outrage once again slow the march of justice?
For the survivors, justice is not an abstract legal ideal. It is closure, dignity and assurance that what happened to them will not happen again. For the nation, this case is a test of conscience.
The court has finally spoken. But it has spoken late. And in cases like this, lateness is not just a flaw — it is a failure.
