Six members of the Meitei family who were executed by Kuki militants in Manipur
Imphal/New Delhi:
The last photograph of L Chingkheinganba Singh, 3, whose partially decomposed body was found in a river in Manipur’s Jiribam district, shows five other family members including his infant sibling and mother sitting together in a forested area.
Chingkheinganba Singh, in a tiny pink t-shirt, had turned his head to look at something or someone. His mother and eight-month-old sibling sat a step across from him. An orange rattle toy lay on a nest of dry bamboo leaves on the ground.
The three-year-old boy from the Meitei community has a bullet wound in the skull, the autopsy report said. There are stab wounds and fractures in the chest and lacerations in the forearm and other parts of the body. His right eye is missing.
The autopsy report shows his mother, L Heitonbi Devi, 25, has three bullet wounds in the chest and one in the buttock.
His grandmother Y Rani Devi, 60, has five bullet wounds – one in the skull, two in the chest, one in the abdomen, and one in the arm.
There are deep lacerations on many parts of the bodies of the two women, the autopsy reports show.
The autopsy reports of the three other family members of Chingkheinganba Singh are with the Jiribam police. They are eight-month-old infant Langamba Singh, his mother’s sister T Thoibi Devi, 31, and her eight-year-old daughter T Thajamanbi Devi.
Laishram Herojit, the father of Chingkheinganba Singh, told NDTV today he asked the police to give the remaining three autopsy reports as the family has the right to access them under the law. Mr Herojit said he is waiting for the police’s response.
Calls to the Jiribam police station went unanswered.
A joint action committee formed to demand justice in the killings said the police have asked them to bring a court order if they want the three remaining autopsy reports.
The premeditated kidnappings and killings of the six members of the Meitei community were done by “Kuki militants”, the Manipur government has said. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is looking into the case.
All the six were living in a relief camp in Jiribam’s Borobekra after they lost their homes in the ethnic clashes between the Meitei community and the Kuki tribes that broke out in May 2023.
At least two dozen Kuki militants attacked the police station in Borobekra, near the interstate border with Assam, on November 11 and killed two senior citizens from the Meitei community, police sources have said. Another group of militants kidnapped the six civilians while the other group pressed on with their attack, sources said.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soon engaged the Kuki militants in a 45-minute gunfight, at the end of which the security forces found 10 bodies along with assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher.
Mr Herojit told NDTV an eyewitness saw his family being taken away in a boat on the Barak River on November 11. All the six bodies were found floating in the river between November 15 and 18.
The photo of the six civilians in captivity appeared in a WhatsApp channel called ‘Zogam News’, which has over 12,000 followers. Reactions on the photo had smiling emoticons. It soon went viral on social media. The WhatsApp channel’s information page shows it was created on March 25, 2024.
Intelligence sources said this WhatsApp channel is among the many they have been monitoring in Manipur.
Civil society organisations of the Kuki tribes claim the 10 men killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”, an allegation the police and other authorities have refuted strongly, pointing at the weapons brought by the militants and numerous bullet holes in a police SUV.
Political leaders across party lines have condemned the killing of women and children in Manipur. Most have said the latest incident was a terror attack considering it was not a skirmish between two communities in a riot-like situation, but a calculated, premeditated kidnapping operation with an intention to kill them.
The latest round of violence in Jiribam began on November 7 when suspected Meitei insurgents attacked a village of the Hmar tribe. A woman from the Hmar tribe was killed in the attack. Her husband in a police case alleged she was shot in the leg, raped and then set on fire by the suspected Meitei militants. Civil society groups of the Kuki tribes have accused the Manipur government of keeping silent on that attack.
The Manipur cabinet in a statement on November 16 had said “Kuki miscreants” burnt several houses and attacked Borobekra police station in Jiribam district on October 19. This attack and not the November 7 attack led to a fresh cycle of violence, sources have said.
The Manipur cabinet’s statement on November 16 said the following: On October 26, “Kuki miscreants” again set a house on fire at Moulkangthol village in the same district. On November 3, Jiribam police rescued a Vaiphei woman from Chandrapur Rani Veng Babupara and handed her over to her family. On November 7, a Hmar woman was killed and several houses were set on fire in Zairawn village by Meitei miscreants. The same day, Kuki miscreants attacked Mongbung Meitei village with bombs. On November 11, the CRPF effectively countered an armed offensive by Kuki militants on Borobekara police station which housed a relief camp, killing 11 militants. In the attack, two Meitei civilians were killed by the Kuki militants.
There are many villages of the Kuki tribes in the hills surrounding the Meitei-dominated valley. The clashes between the Meitei community and the nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis – a term given by the British in colonial times – who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 220 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.
The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes category, while the Kukis who share ethnic ties with people in neighbouring Myanmar’s Chin State and Mizoram want a separate administration carved out of Manipur, citing discrimination and unequal share of resources and power with the Meiteis.
