Guwahati: At least 64 bodies of the victims from both Kuki and Meitei communities were shifted from morgues and handed over to their families on Thursday, ending the months of anxious wait for the relatives to bid adieu to their kin killed in the ongoing ethnic clashes that have rocked Manipur since May, officials said.
While 60 bodies of victims from the tribal Kuki community were shifted from morgues in Imphal to two hill districts, four bodies of Meitei victims were shifted from a morgue in Churachandpur to the state capital, officials added.
The bodies, which were kept for months in the morgues at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) and Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), both in Imphal, were airlifted to Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi and Churachandpur districts amid tight security arrangements put in place by the Manipur Police and Assam Riffles.
According to representatives of Kuki groups, 41 bodies were brought to the Assam Rifles helipad in Churachandpur in four batches by the helicopter till 2.30 pm. The remaining 19 bodies were shifted to Motbung in Kangpokpi.
“They were brought in multiple batches by helicopters from Imphal. The last rites of the fallen Kuki-Zo brethren will be held tomorrow [Friday] at the martyrs’ memorial cemetery at Phaijang village near Motbung,” a member of Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU), a Kuki group in Kangpokpi, said, requesting anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}“They were brought in multiple batches by helicopters from Imphal. The last rites of the fallen Kuki-Zo brethren will be held tomorrow [Friday] at the martyrs’ memorial cemetery at Phaijang village near Motbung,” a member of Committee on Tribal Unity (COTU), a Kuki group in Kangpokpi, said, requesting anonymity.
{{/usCountry}}The Kuki group also called for a 12-hour total shutdown from 5 am to 5 pm on Friday in Kangpokpi’s Sadar Hills area for the funeral services.
“No decision has been taken yet on the date and place of burials of the bodies brought to Churachandpur,” Ginza Vualzong, member of the Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF), a Kuki organisation based in Churachandpur, said. “The last rites will most probably be held next week.”
Four bodies of Meiteis, lying at a morgue in Churachandpur, were also brought to Imphal and handed over to their families for the last rites, officials said.
The development, which ended months of uneasy wait for the families of the victims, came after the Supreme Court issued an order on November 28 for dignified disposal of the unclaimed bodies. The court order came on the recommendations of a three-member panel formed by it in August to look into relief, rehabilitation and remedial measures in ethnic strife-torn Manipur.
Following the top court’s order, the Manipur government sent multiple notifications to the victims’ families, asking them to claim the bodies for the last rites to be performed at five designated locations.
According to a list submitted by the state government in the Supreme Court last month, of the 169 identified bodies, only 81 were claimed by the relatives of the victims while 88 bodies remained unclaimed in the morgues of JNIMS, RIMS and the medical college in Churachandpur.
According to officials familiar with the matter, most unclaimed bodies were of members of the Kuki community. Some of the bodies were kept at the Churachandpur morgue after the tribals refused to bury those until the bodies from Imphal were brought.
Of the 81 bodies claimed by the relatives of the victims earlier, only four-five were of Kukis while the remaining belonged to the victims from Meitei community.
“As per our records, there are 45 victims from Kangpokpi, but we have received only 19 bodies. We might not get any more as we suspected the remains of the other victims might have been disposed of by those who killed them,” the COTU office-bearer alleged.
Meanwhile, a 26-year-old man from Kuki community was killed allegedly after armed miscreants opened fire in Tengnoupal district, officials said. According to Kuki Students Organisation, a tribal group, the deceased was identified as Khaitinmang Baite (26), a resident of Munnon Veng in tribal-majority Tengnoupal.
At least 196 people have been killed and around 50,000 displaced in Manipur since May 3, when the ethnic violence started in the northeastern state between numerically dominant Meiteis, who predominantly live in the Valley, and tribal Kuki community, who are in majority in a few hill districts.