Leaving Manipur, finding home and hope in Hyderabad 

Young man from Manipur, Khailalthang, escapes violence, travels 370 kms to Mizoram, then to Hyderabad. With help from Kuki Students' Organisation, 130 people reunite with families, find jobs, schools, and host families. Retired Subedar Major Letkhothang Kuki saves villagers, reunites with family in gated community. Voluntary organisations help displaced find new homes.

Wearing an oversized checked shirt over a T-shirt, denims and sneakers, Khailalthang feels better off now. Unassuming, the young man would not reveal himself easily.

On June 14, he managed to leave Manipur in slippers, half pants and a T-shirt, travelled 370 kms to Mizoram, thanks to a truck driver who gave him a free ride. He still feels lucky that he was just able to grab his Aadhar card and some certificates before his house was burnt down by a Meitei mob at around 3 a.m. on May 4.

“On May 3, we returned from the hospital after my mother’s dialysis. By 11 p.m., when information spread that a mob was approaching the village, we moved the women, the children and the elderly from the 160 houses into the hills and the jungle. They had sticks and weapons, we used slingshots,” he recollects.

Mr. Khailalthang, among the 130 people from Manipur, is now living in Hyderabad and trying to make a living away from the trauma and violence at his birthplace. By 2 a.m., the crying villagers, hiding in the hillside bushes, saw their homes being burnt. In the early morning, they rushed to their destroyed houses to retrieve whatever valuables they could.

“It was at around 6 p.m., while we all were gathering supplies on the hillside, a crying woman in torn clothes with bruises all over her body walked towards the village,” he recalled. “She is a relative, one of the women, in the viral video, paraded naked and molested by the mob,” the 23-year-old said.

The woman, the villagers, including the newborn and toddlers, lived in the jungle for the next two days, climbed hills and walked long till the Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO) of the Machi Block rescued and transported them in a truck to refugee camps in Kangpokpi and Lamka districts.

With ₹7000 borrowed from his father’s friend, he travelled from Mizoram to Halflong (Assam) and to Hyderabad by Agartala-Secunderabad special train on July 3. Mr. Khailalthang now living in a shared accommodation in Jubilee Hills wakes up to see big buildings after difficult sleeping.