One year since conflict, kin of missing Meiteis in Delhi to seek closure

Heartbreaking story of families searching for missing loved ones in Manipur conflict, appealing for justice and closure in Delhi.

Nearly six months after her 19-year-old son Anthony went missing after crossing the buffer zone, Premlata Ningthoujam keeps a plate out for him even today while they eat their daily meals. A tradition in Meitei communities, the practice is something families follow in the hopes that their loved ones will return. “Every time we clear the untouched plate, our hearts break all over again,” Ms. Ningthoujam said. 

Ms. Ningthoujam was among the dozens of people who arrived in Delhi on Thursday in a bid to make an appeal to find their loved ones — people who were reported to have gone missing in the course of the ethnic conflict in Manipur, which began one year ago (May 3). 

A group of Meitei civil society organisations had brought the families together for a presser at the Press Club of India in New Delhi, stating that there was still no news of 31 people from the Meitei community who had gone missing during the conflict. As the families addressed the press, a poster behind them had pictures of those missing, with the phrase: “Let them Rest in Peace, #Justice4MissingMeeteis”.   

In the one year of the conflict between the valley-based Meitei people and the hills-based Kuki-Zo tribal people, over 220 people have been killed, thousands of others have been injured, and tens of thousands of people have been internally displaced. Amidst this, while the Meitei community has said that there was no news of 31 of their people still missing, the Kuki-Zo people have said 15 of theirs were still unaccounted for.

In Delhi for the gathering, 47-year-old Kabita Atom said, “I last saw my husband on May 6 last year. That afternoon he was visiting a friend and he told me on the phone that he would be back soon. We never saw him after that.” A former journalist, Atom Samarendra, along with his friend Y. Kiran Kumar, had gone missing that day.

“If he is alive, then we request that he be released and if not, at least his remains should be sent back to us for the last rites,” she said, adding that while the Manipur police registered the First Information Report that very day, they had not got in touch with them since about the investigation. 

Ms. Kabita, who is now raising their two sons, aged 17 and 13, said conversations with the children are getting more difficult by the day. “In the beginning, my younger one would keep saying he will go find his father and take his place. They are angry too. At one point, my older one was saying he wanted to take revenge even as I kept trying to explain that is not the way to deal with this,” Ms. Kabita said, adding that members of radical armed outfits like Arambai Tenggol had also made promises to find him but to no avail.