E-Paper
In Manipur, bereaved families wait for a shrapnel of justice
29 days, 89 days, 28 days, 58 days, 87 days and 88 days. That is how long their families have grieved, without any justice. This is their story.
This is what happened to them. Snatched from police custody and killed; beheaded and burnt alive; raped and murdered; shot dead on camera; set on fire in an ambulance; disappeared without a trace.
29 days, 89 days, 28 days, 58 days, 87 days and 88 days. That is how long their families have grieved, without even the beginnings of justice.
This is their story.
From May 3, Manipur has been in the throes of ethnic violence that has left at least 150 dead, injured more than 300, and displaced around 50,000 from their homes. But even as Manipur went through wave upon wave of death and destruction, on July 19 emerged a video that shook a country awake. It showed three Kuki women -- stripped, paraded and one of them allegedly gang raped — by a hooting Meitei mob in Kangpokpi district on May 4. A “zero FIR” was filed two weeks later, a case was registered in the appropriate police station late June, but the police had taken no action till July 19. Chastened by the nationwide outrage that followed the videos, chief minister Biren Singh condemned the event, the Prime Minister spoke outside Parliament , and the first arrest was made. Since then, six more people have been arrested and the case has gone up to the Supreme Court.
Yet, in Manipur, where more than 6,000 FIRs have been registered over the past three months, thousands of people still await the first steps of due process. HT travelled across Manipur to meet six families that have been witness to the most unimaginable pain; cases that can only take place in the throes of what is, at best, a bout of ethnic violence, and at worst, a civil war. The details of these six cases capture the magnitude of brutality on display; nine people killed, two raped, four set on fire. They also reiterate a complete failure of law and order and a police force now divided on ethnic lines themselves, passing blame and jurisdiction to each other. Forget an arrest, in not one of these most heinous of six cases, has even a statement been recorded.
This is their story.
1. Case: Beheaded and burned
Date of the incident: July 2
Case registered: July 2
In the early hours of July 2, 32-year-old David Thiek and four other Kuki friends were on duty, guarding the village of Langza in Churachandpur. Manipur had already seen violence for two months, and battle lines had hardened; the village had emptied apprehending an attack from a Meitei mob. The attack came at 4.30am, and the four men were outfought, and outmatched. Three of Thiek’s fellow village guards fled on foot, while one hid in the bushes. Thiek was caught, allegedly tortured for close to an hour, his limbs chopped off, his severed head put on display on a bamboo fence and later burnt.
A few days later, a video of Thiek’s head impaled on the fence went viral in Manipur, causing widespread outrage, also because one of men ostensibly holding his head was identified by locals as the security guard of a BJP legislator.
Abraham Thiek, David’s younger brother, told HT that they filed an FIR at Churachandpur police station the same day. “But the case was transferred to Kumbi police station in Bishnupur district. It’s been almost a month since my brother was murdered, but thus far no police personnel have reached out to us,” he said.
N Thangzamuan, officer in charge of Churachandpur police station admitted that the case has seen “no action”. “We did some initial investigation in David’s case and transferred it to Bishnupur district since the incident took place under their jurisdiction. But we have no idea what investigation they have initiated. There seems to have been no action,” he said.
The family, including David’s father Khuma who has partial memory loss and is in his early 60s, have all moved to Saikot to the safety of a relative’s home. “More than any compensation money, we want justice and expect stringent punishment for those responsible for my brother’s death,” Abraham said.
2. Case: Rape and murder
Date of case: May 4
Case registered: May 16
Her last call to her mother was on April 30. She told her that she would be home in a fortnight, on Mother’s Day. Four days later, on May 4, the 24-year-old woman, and her 21-year-old friend who belonged to the same Kangpokpi village and worked with her at the same Imphal car wash centre, were dragged out of a room in their workplace (where they were hiding), allegedly raped and murdered by a raging Meitei mob.
Unable to travel to Imphal for fear of their own lives, both families registered a “zero FIR”-- this enables the registration of a case in a place different to the place of crime -- on May 16 at Saikul police station in Kagpokpi, under the sections of rape and murder. Kangpokpi district police officials said that because the incident took place in Imphal, they have transferred the case there, but have heard nothing since.
“In all of this time, I have received just one phone call from the Saikul police station asking for my daughter’s phone number. That has been the only interaction. Another government official came a few weeks after the incident and asked for our bank details. We have heard the government has announced compensation for families of victims, but we have received nothing,” said the 24-year-old’s father.
The families don’t even have the bodies of the two women yet. They are lying in a morgue at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal. Their own village came under attack on June 12, and with every home burned down, one family has moved to a relief camp in Kangpokpi, and another has moved to a relative’s village that they do not want identified.
“What hurts me the most is to know that women were there when my daughter and her friend were raped and murdered. When I called her number on May 4, a Meitei woman picked up and asked me if I wanted my daughter to live or die. After that the phone was switched off, and she was dead,” said the 21-year-old’s mother.
3. Case: Shot dead on camera
Date of incident: July 4
Case registered: July 9
24-year-old Irengbam Chingkheinganba and 31-year-old Sagolshem Ngaleiba left their homes at Sekmaijin Khunou in Imphal West on July 4, a full two months after the Manipur violence first began, but never returned. The next day, both families filed a missing persons report at the Sekmai police station in the morning.
By afternoon, their worst fears had been confirmed. A video surfaced on July 5 that showed both Meitei men tortured and shot dead on camera and then thrown into a ditch by a mob of Kukis.
Voices in the background of the 69-second video call out that they have killed two cadres of the Arambai Tenggol, a radical Meitei group that has been blamed by Kukis of orchestrating attacks on their villages; the families have denied that the two men belonged to this group.
Irengbam’s younger brother Priyobrata said, “My brother didn’t tell us where he was going when he left home on July 4. We tried calling him in the evening but his phone was switched off. We looked for him the entire night, but the next day the video emerged and we knew he had been shot dead.”
Irengbam’s father lodged an FIR at the Sekmai police station on July 9. Senior officers at the police station said that while a sub-inspector-rank officer has been assigned to investigate the case, no action has been taken so far, and the police have not even been able to recover the bodies. “We think the two men could have been abducted at Kanglatongbi, four kilometres north of Sekmai, and taken to Kangpokpi district where they were killed. But we have not been able to conduct a proper investigation,” a police official said.
4. Case: Set on fire on the way to hospital
Date of incident: June 4
Case registered: June 13
The family was already in the throes of grief. On June 3, shots were fired at an Assam Rifles relief camp at Kagchup Chingkhong village in Kangpokpi district, and seven-year-old Tonsing Hansing received a pellet injury to his head. The medical advice was to refer the child to the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal, but travel was fraught with danger. Tonsing’s father Joshua is a Kuki, and the drive to Imphal passed through Meitei areas.
They deliberated but there was only really one choice. The child was at risk; he would have to be taken to hospital. They thought it would help that Tonsing’s mother Meena Hangsing was Meitei, as was Lydia Lourembam, a family acquaintance that accompanied them. They would travel in an ambulance, it was agreed, and the Assam Rifles would take them up to a point, after which the Manipur police would protect the vehicle.
Nothing worked, not even humanity.
At 6.30 pm, the ambulance was surrounded by an alleged Meitei mob at Iroisemba in Imphal West. They pulled out the driver and the male nurse, both Meiteis, and burnt the ambulance with the child, his mother and her friend still inside. When the police eventually reached the site, all they could recover were a few bones.
Nine days later, 55-year-old Joshua filed a complaint at the Kangpokpi police station, but says the “police have done nothing”. “There has been no help from the government. We want the perpetrators of the crime to be arrested and punished,” said a distraught Joshua, who now lives with his two remaining children in a rented home in Kakgpokpi.
Police officers said that a “zero FIR” was registered under nine sections of the Indian Penal Code including attempt to murder and culpable homicide, but curiously, without murder charges. Tholu Rocky, additional superintendent of police, Kangpokpi said, “The zero FIR was transferred to Lamphel police station in Imphal West district under whose jurisdiction the incident occurred.”
A senior officer in Lamphel said they had also filed a suo motu case that was merged with the Kangpokpi FIR, but the case was now set to be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
5. Case: Disappeared without a trace
Date of incident: May 6
Case registered: May 8
On May 6, Atom Samarendra Singh and Yumkhaibam Kirankumar Singh, both 47-year-old Meitei men from Khumbong Bazar in Imphal West went missing. They had left together in Samarendra’s car, a Renault Kwid, that was last seen at Sangaithel Park, in the same district but in an area that borders Kuki-dominated Kangpokpi.
A former journalist, Samarendra worked as a junior assistant at the Imphal-based Institute of Bioresources and Sustainable Development while his friend Kirankumar was a driver.
According to Samarendra’s family members, they last spoke to him at 1pm on that day. “He had gone to the market and the friend’s home, from where he had called at 1pm saying he would be home soon. At around 5.30, the friend called my mother and asked if he had reached home. He hadn’t so we called his number and nobody picked up. A few minutes later, it was switched off,” said Thoihenba Atom, Samarendra’s 17-year-old son.
That same evening, a worried family lodged a missing persons report at the Patsoi police station, converted into an FIR on May 8 under sections of kidnapping and criminal conspiracy. The family also wrote a memorandum to chief minister N Biren Singh on May 10, but said they had received no response. “There has been no information from the police and they are yet to even check the call records of my father to trace the location from where he went missing,” said Thoihenba, a Class 10 student.
Sunil Kumar, officer in-charge, Patsoi police station, said, “There is barely any progress in the case because of the current circumstances, but we are taking it seriously.”
6. Case: Pulled out from police custody and killed
Date of incident: May 4
Case registered: May 4
The beginnings of this case predate the outbreak of violence. At 11pm on April 30, 21-year-old Hanglalmuan Vaiphei from Churachandpur was arrested by the district police for a Facebook post where he had spoken against chief minister N Biren Singh and accused Meiteis of being “racist”, “anti-India”, and intent on “grabbing tribal land”.
Two cases were registered against him for the same post, one of them a suo motu FIR by the Imphal police. He received bail for one of them on May 3, but was rearrested immediately in the second that same day. He was produced in court on May 4, and was sent to judicial custody. It was during this transportation, from an Imphal court to Sajiwa jail, under the protection of the police, that Hanglalmuan’s vehicle was surrounded. According to the FIR registered on May 4 based on the complaint by a policeman present, the mob looted weapons from the personnel, and beat Hanglalmuan to death even as the accompanying police team fled.
On May 18, Hanglalmuan’s family also lodged an FIR at the Churachandpur police station; the National Human Rights Commission served notice to the state government on June 1. It is not immediately known if the state government has responded. Churachandpur police station in-charge, N Thangzamuan, said, “The case has been transferred to the Porompat police station in Imphal where the incident happened, but no arrests have been made so far.”
Hanglalmuan’s mother Thiamneihat, for now, has a small ask from the government; her son’s body. “His body is at the mortuary at Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal, and with the situation as it is, we can’t go there. I want his body back so we can cremate him,” she said.
Hope is ebbing, but eventually, she wants closure and some justice. She has been waiting for the process to begin. For 88 days, and counting.
