Hiyanglam (Manipur): For Pakpi Leima, the days drag on endlessly, but the nights seem even longer.
Standing at the door of her house in Sekmaijin Khunou, a village in Manipur’s Kakching district, she fixes her eyes on the street, as if anxiously awaiting someone’s arrival.
Her gaze then shifts to the garlanded photo of one of her sons, displayed on the veranda. As tears stream down her cheeks, she breaks down and asks her younger son, “Will he never come back? Will I never see him again? Not even his dead body?”
Just a few meters away, another heart-breaking scene is unfolding as Thaba Leima mourns beside the garlanded photo of her son. Though she seems to have come to accept his demise, and even performed the necessary last rites, the yearning for one last glimpse of him makes her restless.
For most family members of the two cousins — 27-year-old Irengbam Chinkheinganba and 31-year-old Sagolshem Ngaleiba Meitei — missing since 4 July, it was a viral video, purportedly of the duo’s brutal “murder”, which ironically brought them a measure of closure. Their mothers, however, continue to yearn for a last glimpse of the two young men and to grant them a proper burial.
On the afternoon of 4 July, Chinkheinganba, a masters’ student in political science in Chandigarh, and his cousin Ngaleiba, a farmer, left their homes in Sekmaijin Khunou together, on a white Vespa, recall the families.
When the two did not return even by 7 pm that evening, the families attempted to reach the two on their mobile phones only to find them to be switched off. Members of the two families told ThePrint that concerned villagers joined in the search that was launched for the two men, reaching out to nearby communities. When their efforts proved fruitless, the families filed a missing persons report at the Hiyanglam police station, in Kakching district, they added.
Within a mere 12 hours, however, a video, purportedly of the two cousins being allegedly assaulted and shot in the head, before being discarded in a ditch, surfaced on social media.
In the video, accessed by ThePrint, Chinkheinganba appears to be slapped before being shot from behind and kicked into a ditch. Another person, who can be seen in the video but whose face is not visible, appears to meet a similar fate. Family members claim the second person to be Ngaleiba.
Members of the two men’s families have alleged that the duo were made to dig the ditch into which they were thrown after being shot. While Chinkheinganba was not married, Ngaleiba is survived by his wife and two sons, aged seven months and four years.
After the video surfaced, a murder case was registered by the two families at Sekmai police station in Imphal West on 9 July.
According to the FIR registered against unknown accused, a copy of which is with ThePrint, the cousins had left home around 2 pm on 4 July. Around 1 am on the intervening night, word spread through “social media” that they had been traveling towards Kangpokpi, when they were abducted and shot dead by “unknown armed miscreants suspected to be Kuki militants at an unknown place”.
The families alleged, however, that “efforts” made by the police to find the dead bodies of the two men “do not seem enough”.
ThePrint reached superintendent of police Imphal West, S. Ibomcha, over phone for comment, but received no response till the time of publication of this report. The article will be updated once a comment is received.
One of Ngaleiba’s relatives also claimed that the families had met Chief Minister Biren Singh, asking him to direct the police to find the dead bodies, but he eventually told them to “move on”.
“Now who do we ask [for help]?” Thingujam Chaoba Meitei, one of Ngaleiba’s relatives asked.
ThePrint reached the CM’s office for comment over text message. Biren Singh’s office confirmed that the families had met the CM “two-three times”, adding that the police was looking for the bodies of the two men.
Ethnic clashes between the tribal Kuki and non-tribal Meitei communities erupted on 3 May, following a ‘Tribal Solidarity March’ taken out to oppose the demand for inclusion of Meiteis in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category and for what was described as an effort to secure the rights and constitutional safeguards of the ethnic Kuki and their sub-tribes. According to police data, the violence has so far claimed over 157 lives and displaced more than 50,000.
Manipur is divided into hill and valley districts, with the former dominated by Kuki and other tribes, while the valley is dominated by the non-tribal Meiteis. While the hills constitute 90 percent of Manipur’s area, the state capital Imphal is in the valley.
Kakching, where the men lived, is in the foothills, while Kangpokpi, where social media posts claimed they were headed, is in the hills. Their last seen CCTV footage is, however, from Kanglatombi in Imphal West, according to police sources.
Also read: ‘Gunfire, bombs every night’ — caught between Meiteis & Kukis, Muslim village wants peace
A CCTV footage & the search for bodies
CCTV footage recovered from street cameras shows the two men going towards Kanglatombi in Imphal West on 4 July at 4:16 pm, police sources told ThePrint. Using this the police charted out a plausible route that the men may have taken and carried out a search, but hit a dead end.
“The last footage that was received is from Kanglatombi in Imphal West where they are being seen going towards the Kuki-dominated hills. We charted out a possible route and are carrying out an investigation. We also informed our counterparts on the Kuki side about the case, but have not been able to make any headway,” a police officer privy to the case told ThePrint.
The officer added: “The call detail records of the two brothers [cousins] are also being scanned and we hope to find their bodies.”
According to sources in the security establishment, the police in Imphal are finding it difficult to carry out investigations in the Kuki areas and vice versa.
The fallout of the violence in Manipur has not just been a fractured state with both communities facing its brunt, but a “completely divided” police force that has failed to restore any normalcy, sources in the security establishment told ThePrint. Amid the violence, more than 1,500 Meitei and Kuki policemen mysteriously went missing in early May, only to reappear in police stations close to their homes days later, alleged police sources.
The Kuki officers assigned to the Meitei-dominated Imphal valley allegedly retreated to the hills, while Meitei officers stationed in Kuki-dominated areas returned to the valley. Many allegedly went on leave, and over 50 officers are said to be missing. Many of them were also reposted closer to home, the sources added.
The repercussions of this division are being exposed in the handling of cases related to the violence, they claimed.
Sources in the security establishment confessed that complaints from Kukis about loss of life and property, and even sexual abuse, were allegedly not registered in Imphal where Meiteis dominate the police stations. Similarly, cases filed by Meiteis regarding losses in Kuki-dominated areas were allegedly not addressed there. Instead, numerous zero first information reports (FIRs) were filed, pending investigation, according to the sources.
Zero FIRs can be filed at any police station, irrespective of the area where the alleged crime was committed. Such an FIR is assigned the number zero, instead of the usual serial number, and is eventually moved to the appropriate police station for investigation.
Last week a video, purportedly of two women being paraded naked by a group of men in Manipur in May, went viral on social media. The women had allegedly also been raped in a field.
When ThePrint had asked CM Biren Singh about the alleged delay in filing an FIR in the case, the chief minister said “thousands of cases” had come up during the violence and all efforts were being made to investigate each one of them.
‘Want to see them one last time’
Meanwhile, families of Chinkheinganba and Ngaleiba too allege insufficient effort on the part of the police in looking for the young men’s bodies.
“Our boys were made to dig their own graves and then shot and kicked in them. And now the police are saying that they cannot even retrieve the bodies let alone save them?” Chaoba Meitei, Ngaleiba’s relative, said.
Talking about the families’ meeting with CM Biren Singh, Chaoba claimed that the CM had initially assured them that the two men will be found in three days, but that he eventually urged them to accept the reality of their loss and move on, citing the challenges faced by the police in locating the bodies.
“He later told us that we should accept the fact that they are dead and move on. He said if the bodies could not be found, he cannot do anything,” Chaoba alleged.
When contacted by ThePrint, the CM’s office said “the families met the CM two-three times requesting for tracing and recovery of the bodies. Police has been making continuous efforts to trace [them], but has not been successful so far”.
In the absence of the bodies, the families performed traditional Meitei last rite rituals using the bark of the Pangong tree, as a symbolic representation of the dead. The bark was clothed in a dhoti, kurta, and cap, followed by a pooja, and ultimately buried in a holy place, followed by 11 days of mourning.
Despite the families of the two brothers accepting their deaths and performing the necessary rituals, their mothers still cling to hope, yearning for a proper farewell for their sons.
Chinkheinganba’s mother, Pakpi Leima, anxiously awaits her son’s remains.
An aspiring civil servant, Chinkheinganba was preparing for the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) entrance exams. While he had joined Chandigarh’s Sri Guru Gobind Singh (SGGS) college this year for a masters’ in political science, he had also enrolled in coaching classes for UPSC entrance exams in Delhi.
It was during a college break in April that he had come home, according to the family.
“We wish that he had not come back,” Leima said, adding, “I just want to see him once”.
His younger brother, Priyobrata, explained that the family had not shown Leima the video purportedly showing Chinkheinganba being shot.
“She will not be able to take it,” he explained. “Maybe that is why she is still hopeful. All she wants is to see my brother one last time.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
Also read: ‘Guardians’ or ‘troublemakers’? Unravelling the role of Manipur’s Meira Paibis or Meitei ‘moms’