Amid the violence, a search for Manipur’s missing

Manipur has been plagued by ethnic clashes between Kuki and Meitei groups, resulting in over 200 deaths and the displacement of 50,000 people.

New DelhiThirty-year-old Henthinthang Haokip is running out of time. He is a soldier in the Indian Army’s elite Rashtriya Rifles (RR) unit, posted near the crucial and often volatile India-China border in Ladakh. For the past two months, Haokip has spent his days next to a bed at the Army’s 151 Base Hospital in Guwahati, where his father, 65-year-old Manglun, has been lying almost completely still, struggling to recover from a murderous attack.

Nengkim (left) has been missing since November. Her husband, Manglun, has been hospitalised since they were attacked. (HT Photo)

Haokip has waited patiently for two months, looking for any sign of progress. But his leave is running out, and he must return to his post. What has kept him in Guwahati isn’t just his father, but the desperate desire for some news, any news, of his mother and cousin, among at least 37 people who have gone missing in the ethnic violence that has roiled Manipur for the last eight months.

On November 7, Manglun, his wife Nengkim and three others family members — all Kukis — were on their way to Leimakhong to meet a relative when they were stopped by an irate mob of over 700 people in Kangpokpi. They came under vicious attack; Manglun was beaten, and left for dead. The others were handed over to a group of armed militants. A day later, Manglun’s sister-in-law Neilam and nephew Jamkothang were found dead in Imphal, their bodies riddled with bullets. His wife Nengkim and their cousin John Thanjalam have been missing since.

“I have been living in the hospital since November. The authorities in Manipur say they are trying to trace my mother, but I am losing hope,” Haokip said.

On January 13, the Manipur Police summoned his sister for a DNA test after they found a woman’s body in Churachandpur. The results are awaited. Pushed to desperation, and resigned to the fact that his mother is likely dead, Haokip says he half-wishes that body is his mother’s. “I hope the DNA test confirms it. At least we will get her body,” Haokip said.

Since the beginning of May last year, Manipur has been ravaged by ethnic clashes between Kuki and Meitei groups that have left at least 200 dead, and over 50,000 people displaced from their homes. The violence has birthed new armed militias ostensibly guarding their own villages and new boundaries within the state; there are Kuki areas in the hill districts where the Meiteis dare not tread, and in the Imphal valley where the Meiteis are dominant, Kukis cannot enter.

These factors, as well as a challenging topography that is both hilly and heavily forested has meant that not only do attacks between the communities continue unabated, but there are many that have gone missing without a trace. Kuki groups say that there are about 15 people who are unaccounted for. Meitei representatives peg the number of people missing at 22.

HT spoke to at least 15 families across both communities, each with their own stories of tragedy, loss, and the painful quest for closure.

Spate of incidents

On November 5, two days before Haokip’s family was abducted, Meitei teenagers Maibam Avinash, 16, and Ningthoujam Anthony, 18, were travelling on a motorcycle when they were kidnapped from the outskirts of Sekmai, near the Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi district. A day later, the Manipur Police arrested two men, and said that they suspected the involvement of cadres of the Kuki Revolutionary Army. In subsequent investigations, they found the motorcycle and two mobile phones, but the teenagers remain untraced. “My brother was not kidnapped during the peak of the ethnic clashes but in November when the situation was ostensibly better. Police told us that the bodies may be buried in the jungles in Kuki areas. But despite so many security forces, they are unable to find them,” said Antony’s elder brother Ningthojang Thebum said.

But if these two cases happened in November, there are families that have been dealing with this absence of information for over eight months. On May 6, for instance, three days after violence first erupted, Atom Somarendra Singh and his friend Yumkhaibam Kirankumar Singh, two Meitei men, went missing. They had left Somendra’s Imphal home in a car that day, and were last seen near a Kuki village on the foothills of Kangpokpi.

For seven months, their families waited. Then on December 15, unable to control their grief any longer, they conducted the last rites of both men. Instead of their bodies, they used tree trunks.

The issue of these missing people has been raised several times in the state over the past few months. On January 4, the Indigenous Tribal Leaders’ Forum (ITLF), an umbrella body of Kuki groups, wrote to Union home minister Amit Shah submitting the list of 15 people missing between May and December 2023. Ginza Vualzong, spokesperson of ITLF, said, “They are all feared killed. We cannot even travel to Imphal valley to find their bodies. We wrote to the home minister and also raised our concern with lieutenant general of Eastern Command in a recent meeting.”

The Coordination Committee on Manipur Integrity (Cocomi), a Meitei organisation, has also published the list of 22 missing members from the community. “The prevailing security arrangement has failed. The glaring inadequacies of the 70,000 strong central forces deployed in state raises questions about their effectiveness in preserving civilian lives and property,” said Khuaijam Athouba, spokesperson of Cocomi.

Fraught with danger

Manipur government spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment but security officials on the ground said that the situation continues to be uniquely challenging, and the missing people could be anywhere — their bodies buried in the forests or the foothills. One official, who asked not to be named, said: “Even in the recent case on January 10, when four men were killed at the Bishnupur-Churachandpur border, the bodies were taken up to the jungles by the militants. While three bodies were thrown in one place in a forest, the fourth was in another part.”

The official said that they were continuing to hunt for the missing, but it would take time, particularly because even a search exercise is now fraught with danger. “On Friday, too, when security forces were trying to find the fourth body in the foothills, militants fired from the hills. Fortunately, no one was injured,” he said.

A second official said that they have also come across cases where newly resuscitated militant groups may be carrying out abductions for extortion. “These groups need money to exist, so they are using the cover of ethnic clashes to abduct people, and are indulging in extortion. We have foiled several such cases.”

Among the most high-profile people to go missing are Meitei students P Hemanjit Singh, 20, and a 17-year-old girl. They first disappeared on July 6, but the case sparked outrage after photographs that showed them prone on the ground in what looked like a militant camp with armed men around them emerged on September 25. There has been a charge sheet in the case by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and five arrests under the charges of kidnapping and murder. But their bodies have never been found.

“When our case made headlines, everyone promised us the moon. The CBI director came to Imphal and we even met the chief minister. The CBI officials said that they have not been able to locate the exact place where the militants may have buried the bodies because they are yet to arrest the main killers,” said the father of the 17-year-old girl.

Emotional as he talks about his daughter over the phone, the tearful man urged the Indian Army conduct a massive search operation in the foothills. “Maybe they will find more bodies. It may be just one case for them, but for us, all we want is closure,” he said. “Six months have passed, and we still don’t know what happened to our children.”