The Child's Cry

In one of the corners of India where people live close to the international border of China and Burma which is covered with lavish and lush greenery mountains on one part and with an abundance of Vegetation on the other part, there lived a tribe of Poumai, who cultivates pineapple and Rice in the hilly areas. Since that is an international border with Myanmar, military forces often guard these places to avoid any kind of insurgency activities.

Atomei Poumai, who belongs to the tribe was educated in the local Manipur state board and completed her degree. Her parents are into farming along with selling some meat at their house.

On the other hand, on one of the busiest roads of Manipur, Vidya was in a hurry to go to the hospital for reporting. That was her first day on duty. She completed her MBBS 2 years ago and since there is a rule to work in remote areas, she opted for Tawang Village in Arunachal Pradesh as her initial work location.

After 2 years she came back to her place and was excited to work there because of the home place's convenience. She is a duty doctor going to the "Bakoban Hospital" for the first time to report. She is traveling in her vehicle and running out of time and thus she was asking her brother to drive fast, and he was helpless and had to stop the car because of the traffic due to some protest there in Imphal.

These kinds of agitations are not new there, once every week it is expected here. As so many thoughts are running through her head, Vidya put her earphones on when traffic cops were discussing with the agitators on the road clearance.

She laid back putting headphones on the headrest, keeping her head towards another side of the road. She suddenly looked at a familiar face coming out from a medical dispensary and noticed that she was her classmate back in school. Looking at her Vidya understood that she was not like the last time she saw moreover, she lost her weight drastically.

Vidya and Automei were classmates in the only school of Imphal back then, where Automei was more interested in Sports and Vidya were in academics. Later on in her puberty, Automei was married at the age of 14 to a guy from Assam and later these two friends were never in touch. As there were some personal issues Automei is living with her mom, who is disabled and deaf.

After the memories flashed in her head, Vidya told her brother that she is going to her. She got out of the car and approached her to wish and saw her friend after a long time from a near distance but that was not a good sight for her.

She was so dull and had some bruises on her cheeks and swollen lips. Her neck had some red marks, and, on her forehead, she was bleeding. After looking at her she was in shock rather than excitement, rather than asking the whereabouts she asked,

"How are you"? What happened?

"I'm fine, nothing just some accident"

"But this doesn't look like an accident"

Yes, it is

"No Auto, tell me what happened" and took the cover that she was carrying medicines,

It was some painkillers and ointment for bruises and some contraceptives.

Vidya understood that something was wrong with Auto and took her to the hospital after the traffic had cleared.

She let her friend sleep on her hospital bed and asked the nurses to give her some medicines as per her body condition and feed her some nutritious food.

After an hour, Vidya came to her friend and asked exactly what happened.

The moment she asked, Auto got shattered and started weeping profusely, and hugged Vidya, as her tears made the whole apron wet, Auto was hugging her tightly and started whining all sudden.

At that moment she realized that something serious had happened and took her to her room to find out exactly what happened.

As Auto was hesitating initially, she was ensured that this word would not harm her and was encouraged to voice out. Auto after taking a deep breath out of her long cry, wiping her face with a towel nearby,

"There were a group of Army men who comes there for recce once every week as part of their regular surveillance. That day my mom who is physically disabled was sitting on the ground and cutting wood for the fire to make food, a guard came to her and asked her for some water to drink when I was in the bathroom when I came to home right after football practice. My mom asked the guard to go inside and have it in the clay pot. While he was drinking, I came from the bath with a towel on me and was surprised to see a person right in front of me that too when I was not in "normal" attire.

It is normal for us to invite Army men to offer some food and water sometimes,

I asked him" what do you want brother"

He said" Please don't call me that, I am like your friend"

He tried to touch my hand looking at my chest part

"You look so beautiful, can you do friendship with me"

I said" Brother, I trust you because of the uniform you wear, please don't talk to me like that"

He was coming close and holding my hand with his right hand, and the moment I was trying to yell, he closed my mouth with his second one and removed my towel of mine.

Sobbing...

I was weak and helpless, my mom was doing her work since she was deaf, she was unable to hear anything, and neither were the people near us as we live secluded.

"He later put his handkerchief into my mouth and held both hands with one hand right over my head and stretched my legs.... that was so painful Vidya" yelped Auto.

Later she herself went to her neighbor's aunty for some medicinal advice without telling her about the incident. Her mom still did not know about that, and she did not have any intention of letting her know.

Listening to that most inhumane thing ever heard, Vidya with her wet eyes called her friend, Tanu from Delhi who is a lawyer to inform her about the incident that happened with her friend.

As soon as the news reached Tanu, the news spread like wildfire across the country. The man who was on duty was punished and suspended and surveillance was increased in such places to ensure that such incidents will never occur again.

Human rights commission and other NGOs visited Automei to convey their condolences.

This depressing episode created a sensation among the women and other activists in the country and the Supreme court took this case as Suo moto to investigate further.

An announcement was made in the state of Manipur especially borderline territories regarding women who faced atrocities in any manner via civil servants and they were called to a central meeting hall led by the district collector-Satya Devi, who worked as a Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission.

A magistrate along with her was appointed by the honorable court to deal with the things in-house where only women were allowed.

A whopping number of 465 women attended the session which made the whole country flabbergasted. This was never brought to the notice by any women to date which is the second most reason for the shock.

As most of them were claiming that they were ill-treated in different ways like molestation, sexual coercion, etc. by law enforcement officials and some armed forces personnel.

The victim record session started at 6 AM the next day as there was a greater number of people reached than expected and the final count went to 545.

By the time the magistrate and collector tallied the head count vs names in the list 2 were in excess, which perplexed them. The counting of victims started so that no one will be left missing, and VPS (Victim Personal Statement) is taken.

After a vigorous count, two people in excess accompanied the victims. One was an elderly woman and the second one was a 3-year child.

As soon as the statement was recorded, while everyone is set to leave the place, this elderly woman started blubbering out of the pain she went through as she did not get a chance to apprise the monstrosity of her husband.

She was raped continuously by her husband and his father who never let her out of their home because of a suspicion that she spread the news outside. Because of this outrage in the state, she came outside with the support of Volunteers from the HRC.

She doubted herself to express herself in front of larger people and realized that she never gets a chance to come out of this suffering.

There was a pin-drop silence, and everyone's hearts were already heavy and made the central hall hushed. Magistrate, despite having heard of so many things got disconsolate and took a deep breath before uttering her last sentence.

Before she broke the silence,

The small child started crying...