Following the surfacing of a video showing two women in India's Manipur being sexually assaulted and stripped naked, one of the survivors has alleged that police left them to the attacking mob.
In an interview with The Indian Express, the survivor narrated their ordeal.
The incident came to light over two months later when a video of the ordeal began circulating online on Wednesday, reports NDTV.
The video shows the women being stripped and forced to walk unclothed, surrounded by a mob that dragged them to a field.
The mob allegedly gang-raped one of the women, reports NDTV.
The incident occurred in the wake of violent confrontations between the Meitei, the majority group in the valley, and the hill-majority Kuki tribe.
The conflict was sparked by the Meiteis' demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status.
While a police report was lodged 15 days after the incident, it took a video of the gruesome event going viral and inciting national fury for arrests to be made on Thursday.
In the complaint made on May 18, the survivors claimed that one of the women was "mercilessly gang-raped in broad daylight".
According to the complaint, the women were part of a group fleeing the violent mob when their village was besieged.
They were allegedly seized from police custody after being intercepted by the mob while being escorted to the police station.
Three women, including one in her 50s, were taken by the mob, as were the father and brother of the youngest survivor. Both men, according to the complaint, were killed.
The 19-year-old male was attempting to save his sister from the mob. The youngest survivor recounted a terrifying ordeal to the Indian Express, indicating that the police provided little to no assistance.
Speaking to the Indian Express from her husband's house, the survivor said the police were present during the attack on their village.
"The police picked us up from near our home, and took us a little away from the village and left us on the road with the mob. We were given to them by police," she said.
She only became aware of the video's existence when it surfaced on Wednesday. She recognized some of her attackers, even noting that one was a friend of her brother.
Her husband, a subedar of the Assam Regiment, gave a heart-wrenching account of the event to India TV, likening the mob's ferocity to that of "animals" with lethal intentions.
Expressing his fear of more such attacks, he lamented: "I fought for the nation in the Kargil war and was also in Sri Lanka as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force. I protected the nation, but I could not protect my wife and fellow villagers."
Four arrests have been made so far in the wake of the video's virality, prompting action from the state authorities.