Guwahati: The first glimpse of Manipur’s ‘Iron Lady’ Irom Chanu Sharmila’s twins is out and we can’t help but go ‘awww’! The civil rights activist, who went on a 16-year-long fast against Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, was blessed with the two baby girls on May 12, which coincided with Mother’s Day this year.
In the three pictures released by Cloudnine Hospital, Malleswaram, where she delivered the babies, Sharmila and her husband, Desmond Anthony Bellarnine Coutinho, can be seen posing for a family portrait along with the twins, named Nix Shakhi and Autumn Tara, who were born a minute apart.
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In another picture, the 47-year-old civil rights activist can be seen with her baby girls. In a third picture, the girls weighing 2.16 kg and 2.14 kg, respectively, at the time of birth, can be seen.
As per reports, Chanu delivered the babies through C-section at the Cloudnine Group of Hospitals’ Malleswaram branch at 9.21 am on Sunday and was doing fine.
She ended her hunger strike on August 9, 2016 after 16 years of fasting, and married her British partner Coutinho in Kodaikanal, a hill station in Tamil Nadu, on August 17, 2017.
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Sharmila is known for protesting against the AFSPA, 1958 which applied to the seven states of Northeast India then and grants security forces the power to search properties without a warrant, and to arrest people, and to use deadly force if there is “reasonable suspicion” that a person is acting against the state.
She was just 28 years when she began to fast in protest at the time of Malom Massacre, in which 10 civilians were killed in Imphal Valley of Manipur by Assam Rifles jawans on November 2, 2000.