India’s top court appoints all-women committee to monitor situation in violence-torn Manipur

India’s Supreme Court appointed a committee of three retired women judges on Monday to look into relief and rehabilitation work in the northeastern state of Manipur which has been hit by sectarian violence since May.

A three-judge bench headed by chief justice of India DY Chandrachud also appointed a retired senior police official to oversee all complaints of sexual violence to be probed by the federal Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI).

The police official will report back to the Supreme Court, Justice Chandrachud said.

“Our efforts are to restore a sense of confidence in the rule of law,” the bench said of the three-judge committee comprising retired justice Gita Mittal, Shalini Joshi and Asha Menon. “We will constitute at one level a committee of three former HC judges. This committee will be looking at things apart from investigation - including relief, remedial measures etc.”

Former IPS officer Dattatray Padsalgikar has been trusted with overseeing the CBI probes, said the court.

Last month, a video of two tribal women being paraded naked and subjected to sexual assault by a mob of men had triggered international outrage over the violence in Manipur.

The women had said in their police complaints they were later gang-raped.

The widely shared footage led prime minister Narendra Modi to address the issue for the first time since the conflict broke out in Manipur, saying the incident “shamed India” and that the guilty won’t be spared.

Since then several other cases of women being deliberately targeted in violence that has resulted in more than 180 deaths and rendered tens of thousands homeless.

Tucked in the mountains on the border with Myanmar, Manipur has been on the brink of a civil war. Mobs have rampaged through villages, torching houses and buildings.

The conflict was sparked by an affirmative action controversy in which Christian Kukis protested a demand by mostly Hindu Meiteis for a special status that would let them buy land in the hills populated by Kukis and other tribal groups and get a share of government jobs.

The conflict has triggered an impasse in India’s parliament, as opposition members demand a statement from prime minister Narendra Modi on the violence roiling the state.

While on Saturday, a delegation of 20 opposition lawmakers from 15 parties visited the remote northeastern state in a bid to pressure the government to take action against the violence.