New Delhi:

Family members of six people from the Meitei community including three children who were kidnapped and killed in Manipur’s Jiribam narrated what they called the “horror” of November 11.

Telem Uttam Singh, who lost his two children and wife; Telem Mongyai Meetei, who lost his elder sister and mother, and Yurembam Sandhiya Begum, who lost her two sisters, told reporters in Delhi they want the government to ensure death penalty is given to the “Kuki militants” who kidnapped and murdered their family members.

The Manipur government in a cabinet resolution has called the perpetrators of the Jiribam massacre “Kuki militants”.

“There must be 30 of them, all of them carrying guns. They surrounded our village. I managed to run, and from a distance saw my mother being dragged away by the Kuki militants in an autorickshaw,” Sandhiya told reporters in Meiteilon, translated into English by a rights activist.

The three family members told reporters they want the government to ensure the death penalty is given to all the Kuki militants involved in the Jiribam massacre. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) is probing the case. All the six were internally displaced people who were living in a relief camp in Jiribam’s Borobekra, after their houses in the district bordering Assam were set on fire by Kuki militants earlier this year.

“How much pain do we have to endure? We lost our homes first. Then they came to kill us in the relief camp. Who kills a 10-month-old baby? They are worse than animals,” Telem Uttam Singh told reporters, and broke down and cried.

The six from the same family were Yurembam Rani Devi, 60; Telam Thoibi Devi, 31; Laishram Heitonbi Devi, 25; Laishram Chingkheinganba, 3; Telam Thajamanbi, 8, and Laishram Langamba, 10 months old.

Nine civil society organisations of the Meitei community in a statement on Saturday said the “premeditated, planned cold-blooded murders after taking the six civilian hostages were an act of terror.”

“Jiri massacre was not a fight between two communities or a riot where mob violence affects both sides in the heat of the moment. The Kuki militants travelled 200 km to Manipur’s Jiribam with the sole intention of attacking a relief camp of the Meitei community. Shockingly, instead of condemning the heinous act, Kuki civil society groups played the victim card in front of the national media, and did not even give the basic dignity to the dead by claiming the Kuki militants were ‘village volunteers’,” they said in the statement.

“Who would kill a 10-month-old infant in cold blood, after kidnapping her family? What objective has the Kuki militants achieved by kidnapping and murdering an infant? What is the agenda behind releasing the picture of them in captivity before murdering and dumping the bodies in a river? Is it to cause maximum trauma to the family and incite hatred?” they said.

The civil society groups are Delhi Meitei Coordinating Committee, Meitei Alliance, Meitei Heritage Society, No. 7, Team Meitei Personalities, Manipur Students’ Association Delhi, Manipur Innovative Youth Organisation Delhi, United Kakching Students Delhi, and Ningols United Progressive Initiative.

Ten “Kuki militants” were also shot dead by the security forces in Jiribam district on November 11.

Cycle Of Violence Began With Attack By Suspected Meitei Militants?

On November 7, a Hmar woman was killed and several houses were set on fire in Zairawn village by suspected Meitei militants. Her husband in a police case alleged she was raped before she was killed and their house was set on fire by the suspected Meitei militants.

Kuki civil society organisations have said the recent flare-up in Jiribam began after the “Meitei militants” attacked Zairawn village and killed the woman. They have also accused the Manipur government of keeping silent on that attack.

The Manipur cabinet in a statement on November 16, however, 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, government sources have said.

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.

Imphal/New Delhi:

Two minor siblings who hid in fields during an attack by “Kuki militants” in Manipur’s Jiribam district on November 11 have given details of what they saw that day.

The elder of the two said he managed to run from “armed Kukis” before they took away his family at gunpoint.

His younger brother said he was in another house with an uncle and an aunt; they too hid in a field.

Their mother, Telem Thoibi Devi, 31, and eight-year-old sister were among six members of their family who were kidnapped and killed by suspects identified as “Kuki militants” by the state government. The other four were their grandmother, mother’s sister, her infant baby, and three-year-old son.

NDTV is not disclosing their identities since they are minors and also eyewitnesses to a case which is now being handled by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

“I was hiding in a field. I couldn’t get up as I was scared of getting shot,” the 12-year-old survivor said.

“I was with an uncle in another house, some four houses away (from where his family members were). When I got out to see, the Kukis came shouting expletives. The CRPF was there, but all of them had gone for lunch. Only one (soldier) was behind,” said the 12-year-old son of Thoibi Devi, whose decomposed body with four bullet wounds in the chest was found floating in a river in Jiribam.

The autopsy report of Thoibi Devi also said both eyes were dislodged from the sockets; her scalp was lacerated at many places, the skull bone was broken and pushed in, and her head was crushed.

The 12-year-old boy said there were women among the attackers in Jiribam’s Borobekra village.

“They came in two packed vehicles, some came walking. They were diesel autorickshaw, the big ones. They surrounded (us) from all four sides. I didn’t see how many women were there, but I saw their faces. I didn’t see them set houses on fire. I saw smoke rising from there while hiding in the field with my uncle and aunt,” he said. “My brother was with my mother. He managed to run.”

The eldest among the three siblings, who is 14, also said the attackers came in autorickshaws. He was with his mother, sister and the other family members.

“They were armed, they jumped out and started shooting at the house. Two of them came and kicked the door. They told us to get out, which we did. A total of four were outside. One of them held my arm and hit my face with the butt of the gun. There was a huge swelling here,” he said, and touched his face to show the affected area.

“I managed to run. They fired a few rounds. They (family) were taken away at gunpoint. I hid in a nearby field. I saw a Casper (armoured vehicle) pursuing them towards the bazaar, towards the ghat, where there are steps (on the banks of the Barak River),” he said.

“It was a CRPF Casper, the small, white one, which looks like a Scorpio. It was damaged in the gunfight. We heard the gunshots,” he said.

Civilians in Manipur often call any large armoured SUV or truck “Casper”, after the Casspir mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle used in counter-insurgency operations.

The police in Jiribam had released a photo of a white SUV with numerous bullet holes, which they claimed were fired by militants.

The eyewitness accounts of the two young boys appear to corroborate with what other eyewitnesses in Jiribam’s Borobekra had reported.

Laishram Herojit, whose three family members including wife, infant and three-year-old son were killed, told NDTV on November 13 that he got a call from his wife when shooting and arson broke out. The call got disconnected and when he dialled her back, he found the phone was switched off.

“She was crying on the phone. She said they were surrounded by a lot of armed people. The call got disconnected, after which I called her back, but the mobile was switched off. My mother-in-law’s phone was also switched off. About an hour later – and we had been searching for a while – a Bengali friend of my wife told us she saw them being taken away in a boat,” Mr Herojit told NDTV.

The 10-month-old infant was shot in the knee, stabbed in the chest, and hit with a blunt object on the jaw, according to the postmortem report shared by the family. Both eyeballs were missing, and maggots were present in the infant’s body which was found in an advanced stage of putrefaction, the autopsy report said. There were bruises all over the face and a sharp cut in the abdomen. The “chop wound” on the infant’s chest fractured the ribs, the autopsy report said.

The Kuki militants had split up into two groups, one that took the family of six, and the other that moved towards the CRPF camp, police sources have said. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp and the police station in Jiribam’s Borobekra are less than 1 km from the Barak River (see map above).

The yellow line is the distance between the river and the CRPF camp (approximately 600 metres), while the white line is the distance between a small settlement and the police station (approximately 350 metres). The small settlement is on the upper tip of the white arrow. This is where the houses were set on fire by the Kuki militants after attacking the police station, according to police sources.

The CRPF engaged them in the open stretch between the larger settlement towards the direction of the river and the camp, which is next to the small settlement that was set on fire, sources had said.

Civil society groups and leaders of the Kuki tribes have claimed the 10 men were “village volunteers”.

The police have, however, called them “militants” and showed assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher as recovered from them, and the bullet-ridden 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 militants 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.

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.

Imphal/New Delhi:

A 10-month-old baby who was among six family members kidnapped and killed by “Kuki militants” in Manipur’s Jiribam district on November 11 was shot in the knee, stabbed on the chest, and hit with a blunt object on the jaw, according to the postmortem report shared by the family.

Laishram Lamnganba Singh was last seen on his mother’s lap in a photograph that surfaced on a public WhatsApp channel called ‘Zogam News’, a day after all six members of the same family from the Meitei community were kidnapped from Jiribam by suspects who the Manipur government in a cabinet resolution called “Kuki militants”.

The WhatsApp channel formed in March this year and which had 12,000 subscribers has shut down, with the National Investigation Agency (NIA) looking into the case now.

All the six bodies were found floating in a river in Jiribam between November 15 and 18. While the autopsies were done on all the six bodies last week, only three reports were released. The other three reports came out today.

Both eyeballs were missing, and maggots were present in the infant’s body which was found in an advanced stage of putrefaction, the autopsy report said. There were bruises all over the face and a sharp cut in the abdomen. The “chop wound” on the infant’s chest fractured the ribs, the autopsy report said.

The body of 8-year-old Telem Thajamanbi Devi was also found in an early stage of decomposition with maggots in some parts of the body. She suffered a bullet wound in her shoulder, which pierced through the heart, lung and ribs and exited, the autopsy report said.

Her mother, Telem Thoiboi Devi, 31, was shot four times in the chest, the report said. Her head had been crushed, it said. Thoiboi Devi’s body was decomposed and both eyes were dislodged from the sockets; her scalp was lacerated at many places and the skull bone was broken and pushed in, according to the autopsy report.

The postmortem reports of the infant’s mother L Heitonbi Devi, 25, his grandmother Y Rani Devi, 60 and his 3-year-old brother, which were released last week, found they were all shot dead.

The autopsy reports of two senior citizens from the Meitei community who were killed by “Kuki militants” on the same day the family was kidnapped show both died of severe burn injuries. The militants had set some houses on fire after attacking the police station in Jiribam’s Borobekra village.

The bodies of Maibam Kesho Meitei, 72, and Laishram Baren Meitei, 64, were found during a search operation hours after 10 “Kuki militants” were shot dead in an encounter with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), police sources had said.

Intelligence sources said the public WhatsApp channel ‘Zogam News’, which first shared the photo of the kidnapped family, may have shut down; however, investigators can use legal means to order the messenger’s parent firm Meta to share the logs, which can find the details of the phone number, SIM card and its owner, and last tower location, apart from other content.

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.

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.

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.

Imphal/Guwahati/New Delhi:

The Central Reserve Police Force’s (CRPF) timely intervention during a “terror attack” in Manipur’s Jiribam district prevented the loss of several lives, Chief Minister N Biren Singh told NDTV on Thursday.

Mr Singh said “10 Kuki terrorists” tried to enter a relief camp in Jiribam’s Borobekra where 115 internally displaced people were living, but the CRPF foiled their plan. All the 10 were shot dead in a gunfight with the central forces on November 11 in Borobekra, a village on the interstate border with Assam. One CRPF soldier was injured.

“If the CRPF was not deployed, the lives of many civilians would have been lost. The Kuki terrorists came with rocket launchers, AK 47, and many sophisticated weapons. They attacked the (police) camp, and killed two people on the spot,” Mr Singh told NDTV.

“They were trying to enter Borobekra relief camp where 115 Meitei civilians were living. But due to the timely intervention by the CRPF, the lives were saved. Otherwise that scenario could have been different. It’s very unfortunate that eight innocent people were killed. The two died in the attack, and six including three small children were kidnapped and mercilessly killed. It is an intolerable crime,” the Chief Minister said.

Civil society groups and leaders of the Kuki tribes have claimed the 10 men were “village volunteers”. The police have, however, called them “militants” and showed assault rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher as recovered from them. A bullet-ridden vehicle of the security forces was shown as one of the targets of the “militants”.

At least two dozen suspected Kuki militants had split into two groups before launching the attack in Borobekra, police sources had told NDTV. While one group took six Meitei hostages, the other group of 10 men vandalised and set fire to houses, and killed two senior citizens from the Meitei community. These 10 were later shot dead in the encounter with the CRPF, police sources have said.

The six hostages were from the same family – a woman, her infant child, her two-year-old son, her mother, her sister and her sister’s daughter – all were killed in captivity by suspected Kuki militants. Their bodies were dumped into a river. Days before the Borobekra attack, a mother of three from the Hmar tribe was allegedly raped and killed by suspected Meitei militants during a night attack on a village in Jiribam.

Mr Singh said the Manipur cabinet’s resolution was placed “after a lot of thought”, adding the Centre sent more forces to catch the “militants”. “You can’t deal with Kuki militants without the forces. The operations have already started. This was the demand,” he added.

The Manipur cabinet has sought to declare the militants involved in the Jiribam terror attack of taking hostages and killing them as an unlawful organisation, or a terror group. He expressed confidence that the Centre would look into the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, or AFSPA, by keeping in mind the “pulse of the people of Manipur” and will surely do something about it.

The AFSPA, which gives sweeping powers to the security forces to operate in “disturbed areas” without fear of court proceedings, was reimposed in six police station areas of Manipur’s valley region.

Protests had also broken out in the valley areas when the partially decomposed bodies of the six hostages were found. The Chief Minister told NDTV that vandalism that happened during the protests was carried out by vested interests and rivals.

“The people came out to protest in shock after hearing about the killings of the six innocent women and children. They were simply rallying and appealing to the government and MLAs, not involved in the violence. The arsonists stole many things from the houses they targeted. It was not the public. They were peacefully protesting, rallying. The troublemakers were the defeated group, politically desperate group, politically motivated gang, who looted and attacked homes. No one from the public attacked the MLAs’ houses. The public was in the bazaar, protesting,” Mr Singh said in the state capital Imphal.

The Chief Minister said that in one MLA’s house, some 600 people came and spoke to him, and after agreeing to their demands of bringing justice in the Jiribam terror attack case, the group of people left.

“Another group of 200 or so people came. These were the ones who created trouble. We have identified them. There is video evidence. Most wore masks, but we know them. They have stolen gold, cash, even eight paddy bags from an MLA’s house. What’s all this?” Mr Singh said.

On the much controversial War on Drugs campaign, the Chief Minister said at least 500 acres of poppy cultivation has been detected in Kangpokpi district, which sprang up fast as the security forces are tied up with other priority tasks.

“Due to the present crisis, security has been tied up in some areas and cannot go out. Taking advantage of this, six villages in Kangpokpi are cultivating a huge amount of illegal poppy. Earlier, the forces used to go in the morning and evening to destroy illegal poppy cultivation. At least 500 acres are being cultivated,” Mr Singh told NDTV.

“We have asked the Chief Secretary to send forces to destroy the poppy farms in Kangpokpi before they can be harvested. They want to destroy the youth of Manipur by making them addicted to drugs, they want to harm India. They are using many strategies to invade India,” he said.

The Kuki tribes have often criticised Mr Singh for allegedly singling out the community and branding them as a people who encourage drug trafficking, even though many members of other communities have been arrested in narcotics cases.

To bring peace in Manipur, Mr Singh said, the Centre had called both sides and started talks. “From the state government’s side, we sent MLAs, leaders to Guwahati, Kolkata, Delhi for talks. Political dialogue, negotiations, interactions, these are the things that will help bring peace,” he said.

He faulted the media for allegedly not reporting the whole picture from Manipur, where he said trouble is confined to two-three districts, and not the entire state where people from different communities are living together in peace.

“Differences between communities have been there for a long time. After my government came, I launched the go-to-hills campaign, go-to-village, meet with people from different communities, bring them together, we honoured every community, and constructed a museum of everyone’s culture and traditions,” the Chief Minister said.

“The Sangai ethnic park has the model of houses of every tribe to show oneness… we are all proud Indians, we are all proud Manipuris, and almost succeeded except for the present scenario with this one community. But other communities are living together. Go to Imphal and see. There are churches, temples, masjids. Trouble is happening only in one-two districts, not the whole Manipur. The national media needs to be aware of all this,” he said.

When violence broke out in May 2023, temples were razed and set on fire in many hill areas, while churches in the valley areas also suffered the same fate.

To a question about the National People’s Party (NPP) withdrawing support to his government, Mr Singh told NDTV he is not worried.

“The Congress has only five leaders. They won only five seats after 15 years… There’s nothing to worry about. Whether the NPP withdraws or not, there is enough of a majority. Those who want to give an excuse at a time when the state is going through hardships, let them be. For example, if a lifeguard runs away when an incident is about to happen, let him run away. I am here to save everyone,” he said.

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.

Guwahati/New Delhi:

Nengboi Doungel, a woman from the Kuki tribes and resident of Pangmol village in Manipur’s Tamenglong district, gave birth to a baby girl in Assam’s Hmarkhawlien relief camp. On the same day, her husband’s mutilated body arrived in Manipur’s Churachandpur district.

Ms Doungel doesn’t know what to do now, after she lost her husband in the Manipur conflict. Her family members are in such a situation of despair that they could not welcome the new birth.

When the situation became tense and the conflict yet again started in some parts of Manipur, Ms Doungel’s husband Haojoel Doungel had fled with his family to the relief camp, seeking refuge.

Despite their displacement, her husband’s dedication to their family never wavered, she said. When her delivery date neared, he went to Jirighat in search of financial aid to ensure a safe delivery.

Tragically, this act of love and responsibility became his last.

Sources have said Haojoel Doungel was allegedly kidnapped by suspected Meitei militants. His body was found in a culvert near Anglapur village in Jiribam.

Unaware of the tragedy that had unfolded, Ms Doungel went into labour in the relief camp and gave birth to their little daughter. The arrival of the child brought a fleeting moment of joy amid profound grief as at the same day her husband’s body was brought to Churachandpur.

Civil society groups of the Kuki tribes said Haojoel Doungel risked everything for the wellbeing of his wife and the newborn, but lost his life in the conflict, leaving his family shattered. This tragedy is not an isolated incident, but emblematic of the broader devastation wrought by the ongoing conflict.

In the past two weeks, a woman from the Hmar tribe was killed by suspected Meitei militants, and eight from the Meitei community were murdered by suspected Kuki militants. Six of the eight were from the same family, including an infant and two children; they were taken hostage, killed in captivity and the bodies dumped into a river by the suspected Kuki militants.

Imphal/Guwahati:
The Manipur cabinet in a five-hour meeting on Monday took several decisions to rein in targeted ethnic killings in the last two weeks that have claimed nine lives. Ten Kuki militants were also shot dead by the security forces in Jiribam district.

Here’s your 10-point cheat sheet to this big story

New Delhi:

A protester was shot dead during a clash between security forces and a mob in Manipur’s violence-hit Jiribam district, officials said Monday. A police official in Imphal said a young man, identified as K Athouba, was killed in an exchange of gunfire Sunday night.

It is unclear who fired the bullet that killed the 21-year-old.

However, protesters have claimed Manipur Police special commandos had fired their weapons to disperse the mob, and that Athouba was killed in the firing and two others were injured.

A police official countered, saying the mob had attacked and vandalised properties of various leaders’ houses and political party offices Sunday night. The official said the mob first vandalised properties carried out arson attacks in areas under the Jiribam Police jurisdiction.

They were protesting the killing of three women and three children on November 11.

There was violence on Saturday too; a mob protested outside the homes of at least two ministers, including Health and Family Welfare Minister Sapam Ranjan, and three MLAs in state capital Imphal, officials said.

This was hours after the cops found the six bodies – five days after the women and children from the Meitei community were taken hostage by suspected Kuki insurgents. Top sources in the Manipur government told NDTV the bodies were found in neighbouring Assam.

The Assam Police are on high alert in the area.

The women and children were taken hostage by a group of suspected Kuki insurgents from Jiribam’s Bokobera neighbourhood while another group of insurgents were engaged in a gunfight with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), sources have said.

Ten of the suspected Kuki militants were shot dead in the encounter.

A group of people from the Kuki tribes surrounded SMCH and began a protest to block the transport of the 10 bodies kept in the morgue. They claimed the 10 Kuki men killed in the encounter were “village volunteers”.

The protesters this morning blocked policemen who tried to take the 10 bodies out of the hospital for transport to Manipur’s Kuki-dominated Churachandpur. The Kukis want the bodies to be handed over to them in Silchar, from where they plan to take the body towards neighbouring Mizoram.

Fighting broke out in the northeastern state more than a year ago between the predominantly Hindu Meitei majority and the mainly Christian Kuki community. The conflict has simmered since then, splitting previously cohabitating communities along ethnic lines.

Jiribam/New Delhi:

One of the worst cycles of the Meitei-Kuki ethnic violence in Manipur since May 2023 began on November 7 in Jiribam district, 220 km from the state capital Imphal, on the interstate border with Assam. At least 19 people have died, including 10 Kuki men who the police have called “militants”, in less than two weeks. The Kuki tribes claim the 10 men were “village volunteers”.

This multi-ethnic district, where a National Highway akin to a lifeline for Manipur passes through to reach Assam (and hence the rest of the country), had been violence-free for over a year until June, when the body of a Kuki teen was found in a river.

Kuki civil society organisations had alleged a Meitei armed group killed the teen and dumped him into the river. Then the body of a Meitei man was found, allegedly killed by a Kuki armed group in a retaliatory strike.

In both the cases and the many thereafter that shattered whatever semblance of peace Jiribam had, the police have not conclusively found the accused. All that remained were videos on social media, voice messages on WhatsApp groups, photos, screenshots, etc that claimed they were what really happened among the many ‘truths’ competing for takers. While some of these viral content can be cross-checked to a high level of accuracy, most are simply unverifiable.

Real people died, but narratives went on gliding smoothly through the airwaves.

November 7 Attack On Hmar Village

The macabre murders of six members of a Meitei family – including an infant, a two-year-old boy, and an eight-year-old girl – by suspected Kuki militants in Jiribam appeared to be the closing of the cycle of violence that began on November 7, when a woman from the Hmar tribe, mother of three little children and school teacher, was allegedly raped, shot in the leg, killed and set on fire by suspected Meitei militants in Jiribam’s Zairawn village.

The suspected Meitei militants set fire to several structures, including the school teacher’s house, which stood at the end of a row of houses in Zairawn village, eyewitnesses who claimed they ran to a nearby treeline and saw the burning houses told NDTV. Her house was the last to be attacked, they said.

The autopsy report said the school teacher’s body was burned 99 per cent. It noted horrific injuries, including broken bones and a separated skull. Samples to check for sex assault could not be taken as “the body parts were completely charred and not recognisable”, according to the report. The rape allegation was made by her husband in a first information report (FIR).

NDTV is not disclosing her name owing to the rape allegation, as a Supreme Court order bans revealing the identity of a rape victim or a survivor, so do Section 72 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF) and other Kuki civil society groups have alleged the Meitei armed group Arambai Tenggol (AT) was involved in the November 7 night attack.

The AT calls itself a “volunteer” group, and claims to have taken up arms to defend the Meitei community due to alleged inaction by security forces in Meitei villages near Kuki-dominant foothills. The Kuki tribes also have armed “village volunteers” who the Meiteis accuse of working with well-trained and heavily armed Kuki militants.

Houses Set On Fire

The 31-year-old teacher taught at Jiribam’s Hermon Dew English Junior High School, 400 metres from a heap of burnt wood, bent metal and ashes, or what is left of a place that she once called home when she was alive.

A college student from the town, who studied in the school where she taught, told NDTV his own family also barely escaped death by “mere seconds, running barefoot to the adjoining forests under raining bullets.”

The college student and others from Zairawn village, who requested anonymity for safety and privacy reasons, said they did not expect an attack as firing had stopped in the area for nearly a month.

“… Most Zairawn villagers (including women and children) who had taken refuge in (Assam’s) Cachar returned to the village recently with the assurances of security forces like CRPF, who are stationed in the village. The children wanted to return to the classroom as their studies had been hugely affected due to escalation in violence in the neighbouring areas,” the college student, who is also a relative of the school teacher’s husband, told NDTV.

“Unbeknownst to their fate, several women and children including my own family were sleeping peacefully at their homes, a few hundred metres away from Mongbung Meitei Leikai. The sound of gunfire was first heard at 9 pm; it came from the Mongbung side. Many villagers believed that no armed intruder would enter the village, as in the last few months no one left their homes despite hearing the sound of gunfire,” the college student alleged, adding within minutes at least a hundred Meitei men, some armed with assault rifles and others carrying melee weapons, reached the gate of Zairawn village.

“They started shooting at homes before looting. If not for the difference of a mere few seconds, that night could have turned into a massacre of my village. My family barely escaped death, ran to the adjoining forests under raining bullets. Just like my own family, she (the school teacher) and her family were still staying in their house during the attack, believing that the armed intruders wouldn’t enter the village.

“Their (the school teacher) house was closer to the middle of the village and so they did not intend to leave. They could not have known what awaited them. But within a few minutes the armed intruders entered the village. Due to no opposition, they quickly reached the front of the house and went inside, shooting,” the college student told NDTV.

‘Couple Made Hard Decision’

Other eyewitnesses said the couple and their children ran out of the house, but went right back in due to heavy gunfire outside. It was during this time she was shot in the leg, they said, adding her husband carried her till their garden, but had to save the children, so the couple likely made a hard decision while their house began burning.

They shared visuals of the attack, some of which appeared to have been recorded by the suspected Meitei militants themselves during the attack. They are heard shouting in Meeteilon, the language of the Meitei people. Other videos show Hmar villagers hiding behind a treeline in the dark. The night time temperature in Jiribam is about 18 degree Celsius in this season. NDTV could not independently verify the visuals.

“As seen in the video, some miscreants, likely Meitei locals from nearby Mongbung who grew up with Zairawn villagers, asked their fellow miscreants not to kill anyone, while others shouted ‘I’ll kill them’,” the student told NDTV. “After that we don’t really know what happened other than what the autopsy reports say,” the student said, adding his house was also set on fire.

Some Hmar villagers have alleged the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) stationed in Zairawn did not intervene on November 7 night.

They alleged the attackers set fire to 19 houses, looted a huge amount of cash; stole mobile phones, cooking gas cylinders, six two-wheelers, and killed some village dogs.

“It was a hugely traumatic incident for us Zairawn villagers. We never thought even in our worst nightmare anything like this would happen,” the college student said.

A day after the Zairawn attack, a woman from the Meitei community was shot dead allegedly by suspected Kuki militants while working in a paddy field in the valley district Bishnupur. While Meitei civil society groups alleged the firing came from a nearby hill, the Kuki tribes have denied the shooting, citing the long distance from the nearest hill to the paddy field where the woman was hit. Kuki groups have alleged Meitei insurgents tried to shoot at central forces for not letting them cross the sensitive area (or “buffer zone”), but missed and hit the farmer.

On Monday, 10 suspected Kuki militants were shot dead by the CRPF in Jiribam’s Borobekra. The same day, six members of a family from the Meitei community were taken hostage by suspected Kuki militants. They allegedly shot dead two Meitei senior citizens before leaving by boat via Barak River. Kuki civil society organisations have demanded an investigation into the Monday encounter. Three partially decomposed bodies were found floating in a river on Friday. More bodies were found in the river on Saturday and Sunday. They turned out to be the bodies of the six hostages. The Kuki tribes alleged Meitei miscreants set fire to at least five churches on Saturday night in Jiribam.

All these were part of the cycle of violence that spiked on November 7 in Jiribam, beginning with the killing of the school teacher – despite local Meitei and Hmar representatives agreeing to maintain peace in meetings moderated by the security forces.

The school teacher from the Hmar tribe is survived by her husband, a three-year-old son, and two daughters, who are seven and nine years old.

There is a photo of a gravestone in Jiribam, taken on a November evening when the winter sunlight is a soft yellow.

The three children were standing around the gravestone, on which the name of their mother was etched with an epitaph in what appeared to be the Hmar dialect. The boy, the youngest among them, was standing in the middle with both hands pressed to the gravestone. His sisters flanked him. Their father stood in the middle, behind all of them, and looked halfway down somewhere in the distance, a visibly broken man.

The shadow of a tree falls on him.

Guwahati:

Unrest has broken out in Manipur again over the last two days. Violent protests have continued in the valley and the houses of several ministers and MLAs were attacked by mobs. Now tension simmers in the Imphal valley region as civil society groups have given an ultimatum to the Centre and the state government to take “decisive action” against armed groups or face public anger. 

Last night, huge mobs gathered and attacked the residences and properties of ministers and MLAs, angered by the continued violence for months together.

The trigger was the news of recovery of decomposed bodies of six persons who were allegedly taken hostage after the Jiribam shootout, where 10 Kuki militants died.

Civil society groups from the valley dominated by Meiteis have given an ultimatum.

“All the MLAs and other leaders must sit together to take decisive action to resolve the present crisis at the earliest,” said Khuraijam Athouba, spokesperson, COCOMI, demanding urgent military crackdown on the terrorists and the armed groups.

“If they do not take any decisive action that satisfies the people, the government will bear the brunt of the people’s discontent and anger,” he added.

The state cabinet has urged the Centre to review and withdraw the re-imposition of AFSPA in six police station areas. The Opposition is trying to corner the state and centre.

“We have already mentioned that if necessary, that if we MLAs resign it can solve the crisis, then we are ready for it,” said Okram Ibobi Singh, the Leader Of Opposition.

The onus of the situation, he pointed out, lies with the state and the Centre. “There is complete breakdown of the Constitutional machinery. This is the government’s responsibility and they cannot avoid it,” he added. The Centre has rushed top CRPF officials to the state. 

Meanwhile in areas dominated by the Kuk-Zo, their tribal body has demanded comprehensive AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Act) coverage for the state’s Valley districts.

The Committee on Tribal Unity of Sadar Hills in Kangpokpi District has issued a strong statement, urging the Union Home Ministry to extend AFSPA to all 13 remaining police stations in Manipur’s valley districts while withdrawing the act from the hill areas, including Leimakhong.

The protests by the community have intensified over the Jiribam crisis.

“Enough is enough. Our cries for justice cannot be silenced anymore. We march today not only for our fallen brothers and sisters but for the dignity of our people and the rule of law,” said Sylvia, a Human Rights activist from Kangpokpi.