Churachandpur: Amidst chilling cries of “rape her, kill her, burn her”, a nursing student claims she was forcibly dragged out of her hostel. A construction worker says he endured merciless beatings, so severe that his barely breathing body was left in the morgue. A petrol pump employee alleges he was first picked out for a brutal assault at work, and then also mistreated by the police.
Geographically, Manipur is divided into hill and valley areas. The hill areas comprise 90 per cent of the state’s total geographical area and are predominantly inhabited by Naga and Kuki-Chin-Mizo or Zo ethnic tribes. The valley areas are dominated by non-tribals or Meiteis.
The clash which erupted in the state on 3 May followed a solidarity march called by the All Tribal Students’ Union of Manipur to oppose the Meitei demand for Scheduled Tribe status, which the Kukis say is a bid to secure constitutional safeguards for the community.
While the ethnic conflict’s root causes are complex and multifaceted, and the ongoing incidents of violence have resulted in casualties on both sides, these stories are of three Kuki victims.
All three were living in or around Imphal, which is predominantly inhabited by the Meitei, when the clashes started.
When ThePrint met them last week, they had all sought refuge in the hill district of Churanchandpur. All showed scars of injuries and appeared visibly traumatised by their experiences.
While Chief Minister N Biren Singh has attributed the violence to “Kuki terrorists”, the ground reality suggests a more unsettling truth — of neighbours turning against neighbours, deep-rooted mutual distrust between communities, and the apparent emergence of a genocidal impulse that is proving difficult to contain.
These stories offer a glimpse into the deep-seated animosity pervading a large section of society in Manipur, where incidents of ethnic violence continue to erupt at frequent intervals.
On the morning of 4 May, 22-year-old construction worker David Liansianguan was allegedly dragged out of his employer’s house and on to a road. Members of a mob checked his ID, saw that he was a Kuki, and set to work, he claimed.
According to Liansianguan, his feet were tied with a rope, his head kicked like a football by numerous people, and he was thrown in a drain. He said he remembers begging for his life, but claimed the blows continued. Somebody even took out a thick wooden stick, perhaps a bat, and hit him over his face, he alleged.
When his body was giving up, the mob allegedly pulled him out of the drain and left him to die on a street in Imphal, a city he was helping to build with his hands.
A viral video on social media purportedly captures some of the aftermath. The video appears to show three men lying on the road— the one in the middle is Liansianguan. In the seven-second video, he lifts his head twice, but the rest of his body can’t move.
Twenty-four days after the alleged assault, Liansianguan sat motionless on a pink quilt folded on a wooden bench in his home in Zoumunnuam village of Churachandpur district.
His head and chin were covered in bandages, his face and lips swollen almost beyond recognition. Any movement of the head or lips still brought excruciating pain, he said.
His father, T. Khupminthang, who also worked with David in Imphal, struggled to put his feelings in words.
When they were attacked in Imphal, Khupminthang managed to escape. Their employer — a Meitei — hid him in his bedroom and later shifted him to a police shelter.
“I blame myself for David’s condition. I took him to Imphal to work. Had I not been poor, I would not have taken my son to work,” he says, tears rolling down his cheeks.
When ThePrint examined a purported X-ray plate of Liansianguan’s face under the light, it revealed a deep crack running through the middle and on both sides of his lower jaw bone. Other medical scans seen by ThePrint showed that his skull suffered several fractures.
Three of his lower teeth were broken, his left ear needed stitches, and his jaw had to be fixed with surgery, Liansianguan said.
When he was found on the ground with his two friends, all three were thrown in a mortuary, where bodies were piling up.
Khupminthang recalls the moment that he found out that his son had ‘died’.
“When the police were taking me to a shelter, I heard on their walkie-talkie about three bodies being taken to a mortuary. It was from the same location where David was beaten up. I knew they were talking about him,” says Khupminthang.
After that, he started trying to look for the mortuary where Liansianguan had been taken, despite the risk of leaving the relief camp.
“I could not share my pain with anyone. I told my elderly mother and my wife, who is a heart patient, that David is safe with me. But my tears just wouldn’t stop,” he told ThePrint.
Khupminthang reached home a week later in an Army convoy. Alone.
By then, through relatives, the news of Liansianguan’s ‘death’ had reached home. But at a prayer meeting organised at the village on 10 May, there was a phone call. It was Liansianguan.
He was alive in the ICU of Imphal’s Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS). Khupminthang believes that a hospital staffer must have found him alive and taken him for medical treatment.
When he gained enough strength to speak, Liansianguan borrowed a nurse’s phone and dialled home.
“My face is not like before. I feel it is all distorted,” Liansianguan had said on the phone, according to Khupminthang.
It was a rush of emotion for Khupminthang and his family. But in no time, their fears took over their happiness. The next challenge for them was to bring David home safely from Imphal. Fortunately, with the help of the Army, David had a teary union with his family within days.
Khupminthang feels he is lucky to have his son back alive. His neighbour, the village chief, was not as fortunate. The chief lost his son — David’s friend and one of the three men seen lying on the road in the video.
David’s wounds are healing, but his trauma runs deep. He still begs for mercy in his sleep sometimes, his eyes filled with horror, said his family.
Khupminthang cries for no reason and cannot stop. Their future, he said, will never be in Imphal again.
“Imphal nahi jayega to mar nahi jayega. Aur bhi bohot kaam hai (If I don’t go to Imphal, I won’t die. There are many other things to do),” he said.
The last thing 22-year-old nursing student Agnes Neikhohat Haokip said she remembered before she lost consciousness is hearing a woman scream— “Rape her, kill her, burn her. Do to her what her people did to our women.”
The woman, allegedly, was referring to a photo that was doing the rounds online. It showed a young woman’s body wrapped in a plastic bag with the caption that she was a Meitei nursing student in Churachandpur who had been raped and killed inside the hospital.
“All of these horrible incidents are happening right inside the hospital. Imagine how the girl must’ve felt in that moment,” said a Twitter post by the handle @jinngomez50592.
The photo was later confirmed to be of Aayushi Chaudhary, a Delhi girl who was allegedly murdered by her parents last November.
The fake news added fuel to the fire which had engulfed Manipur and on the evening of 4 May, Haokip, a second-year nursing student in Imphal, found herself in the middle of it.
The mob, comprising many women, was out for blood, she claimed. They allegedly thronged Haokip’s hostel, dragged all the nursing students out, and checked their Aadhaar cards to identify Kuki students. Haokip, along with a friend, were two of the eight tribal students who could not hide in time.
She recalled a brutal assault — she was allegedly punched on her face, leading to three teeth being broken, kicked, beaten with thick wooden sticks. When two men hit on her head, she started losing consciousness.
“Cut them with a knife and burn them,” the mob was screaming, she claimed.
When Haokip regained consciousness, she said she found herself at the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) hospital in Imphal, where she received emergency care.
In the medical records seen by ThePrint, her prescription from JNIMS is written on a plain A4 sheet instead of a hospital letterhead. There is no mention of her having been examined for sexual assault.
Haokip claimed she had lost consciousness, the hospital document seen by ThePrint does not mention it. It only diagnoses her with headache, pain and swelling on the face and eyes and three front teeth missing. For treatment, it prescribes antibiotics, eyedrops, and painkillers.
ThePrint reached JNIMS for comment over phone several times, but representatives said they would answer queries later. This report will be updated when a response is received.
She was soon shifted to an Army camp where her brother was deployed. Twenty-two days after the attack, she said she finally made it to Churachandpur with an Army escort, although her family home is in Sugnu in Chandel district.
Haokip is currently receiving treatment at the ICU of Churachandpur district hospital. The injuries on her back do not let her lie straight and she can barely open her mouth to speak, she told ThePrint. Her face is swollen and she has blood clots in her eyes.
“My whole body is in pain,” she told ThePrint.
“We thought this won’t happen to us because we are medical students. But no one was spared,” she claimed, crying. The beeping of the monitors is the only other sound in the room. Her friend who was allegedly beaten up along with her has flown to Delhi, she added.
The trauma of the evening of 4 May is still engraved in her mind. Going back to Imphal to continue her studies is impossible for her, she said.
“I don’t think I’d be alive,” she claimed. “I feel safe here.”
Thangboi (he gave a single name) remembered 3 May being was an unusually long day at the petrol pump where he worked in Manipur’s Nambol district — about a 40-minute drive from Imphal. He was tired and hungry, but the cars kept coming, he said.
When he finally went to his quarters and was about to eat, a large group of men wearing black T-shirts allegedly gathered at the pump and called him outside.
According to Thangboi, the mob identified three Kuki men from the staff, and he was one of them. While one managed to escape, a brutal assault on Thangboi and his friend began, he alleged.
He claimed they specifically targeted his head, punching him, kicking him, and hitting him with thick wooden sticks. Thangboi said he witnessed his friend fall motionless, and in no time, he too collapsed.
“I did not even know what was happening in Imphal and Churachandpur then and why I was beaten up. But in hindsight, I feel that the man running a paan shop near the petrol pump knew that I am a Kuki. He must have revealed my identity,” claimed Thangboi, who is now at a relief camp in Churachandpur.
He said he lay unconscious at Imphal’s Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) for three days. When he woke up, though, he realised he wasn’t safe there either. He claimed a doctor at the hospital whispered to him to not talk to anyone.
“The doctor said that the people there think I am a Meitei,” Thangboi told ThePrint.
But that trick didn’t work for very long. According to Thangboi, the attendant of the patient on the next bed identified him as a Kuki and said that he should be killed.
He was still in unbearable pain, he said, when the police evicted him from the hospital and put him in a relief camp with other Kukis. He said he was shifted between camps several times and alleged that some policemen also showed their biases during that time.
“The policemen who were transporting me kept hitting me on my wounds and punched me. They said I am a Kuki,” Thangboi alleged.
He added that one cop told him to bear with the beatings until he was relocated to a stable location. “If you retaliate, they will kill you,” this cop, a Meitei himself, said, by Thanboi’s account.
When he finally reached a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp in Imphal, he had not eaten for days. Even when food was provided, he said he could not chew. As he lay helpless in a corner, he recalled a CRPF soldier giving him a few slices of bread and juice.
“I was in so much pain, I didn’t think I would make it alive,” said Thangboi, bursting into sobs. He said he eventually reached the relief camp in Churachandpur on 22 May.
His injuries are deep. Not only does he have big gashes on his back, head, forehead, and right ear, he claimed he had developed memory issues.
He cannot recall his full name, or the name of his mother, he claimed. He does not have any identification cards or his phone. The caretakers at the camp told ThePrint that at times he appeared lost and confused and roamed around aimlessly. They are scared that he might not remember the way back.
Sitting on a wooden bench in a church at the relief camp, he kept a towel around his neck and pulled it up to cover his wounds. He has a single aim now, he said. When he gets better, he wants to go out and kill at least one Meitei to avenge his friend’s death.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Published by The Print
Thingkho Le Malcha (TLM) is a traditional method of communication used to send out messages across the Kuki hills during the Anglo-Kuki War,1917-1919... more
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