Neither dead nor alive: Search for Manipur's missing haunts families

Hindustan Times

03-05-2025

For nearly 21 months Ngamkholin Haokip (45) refused to allow leaders of his tribal community to put his missing daughter's photograph, beside hundreds of other photographs at the Kangpokpi town's Wall of Remembrance – a memorial in the middle of the town with pictures of those killed in Manipur's ethnic clashes.
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Haokip's daughter, Hoineilam(27), a Kuki-Zo tribal, went missing on May 4, 2023, from the state Capital Imphal -- a day after ethnic clashes between Meitei and Kuki-Zo groups started across the state. Hoineilam was not among the 25-30 thousand Kuki-Zo people rescued from the valley districts by security forces and shifted to the hills for their safety.
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Her body was also not among those found charred, lynched, shot, or stabbed to death in the valley during the first few days of the clashes. Two years later, it had still not been found. And so, sometime in February this year, Haokip allowed his daughter's photograph to be put up among the dead -- the most recent addition in the wall of at least 150 such photographs.
In Imphal valley, for nearly a year, former Manipur police officer, S Ibungobi, refused to hold his missing son's funeral. Ibungobi is the father of P Hemanjit Singh(20), the young Meitei man who was abducted along with his friend, a 17-year-old girl, by Kuki militants on July 6, 2023.
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Two months later, photographs of the two surfaced on social media. The photographs showed them surrounded by armed men. Another photo showed them lying dead on the ground.
As the photographs went viral, outrage turned to protests, and senior CBI officers were flown in from New Delhi to recover the bodies.
But despite police, paramilitary forces and CBI teams conducting extensive searches in the hill districts of Churachandpur and Kangkopki, the bodies could not be found. Sometime in August 2024, Ibungobi held his son's funeral. A banana stem was used as a replica for Singh's body, according to the local ritual.
In the ongoing ethnic conflict between the state's two communities that has left at least 260 dead and rendered nearly 60000 homeless, there are at least three dozen cases of people reported missing, feared killed and secretly buried in areas where the communities cannot enter because both Meiteis and Kuki-Zos have retreated to their respective strongholds.
But while the communities are still divided on ethnic lines , there is strong agreement on need to find the missing people, or at least their bodies.
With no major incident of violence reported in the last five months and the state currently under Centre (President's rule), the families of those missing are hoping security forces can finally scan the length and breadth of the state to find the missing bodies.
Kabita Devi, wife of former journalist Atom Samarendra Singh, believed to have been abducted by Kuki militants, along with his Meitei friend on May 6, 2023, said, "Police initially said my husband and his friend were abducted and their bodies are buried in Kuki areas where they cannot enter. Now that President's Rule is in place, law and order should be the same for all places in Manipur. Why can't the forces now go to the areas and find my husband or his body? Even to get a job on compassionate grounds and take care of my family, the government insists on a death certificate. But then the same government says, they must wait for at least seven years to issue the certificate.'
Singh's case isn't unique -- people have disappeared from just about anywhere; a recent mystery was about a man who disappeared from a high security military compound in the state
On November 11, 2024, Kamal Babu Laisharam, a supervisor at the Indian Army's 57 Mountain Division campus in Leimakhong -- sandwiched between the Meitei and Kuki-Zo areas -- was reported missing. There was evidence of Babu entering the campus on his scooter that morning but no signs of either man or vehicle leaving.
'My uncle's entry inside the Leimakhong military campus along with the CCTV footage of November 11, 2025, is there. But there is no record of him exiting. Even his scooter has not been found. The Indian Army used helicopters and drones for days to search for him or his scooter,' his nephew Ibo Singh said.
Singh said the family suspects Kamal Babu may have been abducted on a 500m-long deserted stretch within the army campus, where Kuki-Zo workers were carrying out some construction. Unlike other parts of the state, where Meiteis and Kuki-Zo tribals live in their respective strongholds, the army compound has civilians from both communities working inside. Civilians use the compound's separate gates to enter from their respective villages -- each trying not to use the gate next to the other community's village.
'We all suspect he was snatched by Kuki-Zo workers on a deserted stretch within the campus where there are no cameras. Most probably, they used a civilian truck (carrying construction material) to bundle him and his scooter and leave the campus. But there is no evidence to support this theory. Police are clueless. It is strange that a person simply vanish from a military compound,' Ibo Singh added.
With the second anniversary of the conflict held on Saturday, the civil society groups from both communities are demanding that the Manipur administration to find the missing people.
Athouba Khujairam, convener of the influential Meitei group, COCOMI said,' President's Rule has been in place for four months now. How long will families continue to wait for a closure? '
Thanglen Kipgen, President of the Kuki-Zo body, Committee on Tribal Unity(COTU), said, ' Remember the viral videos of our two village volunteers who were shot dead by Meitei people last year and their body parts chopped and used as trophies? Their bodies are still buried somewhere in the valley where the Meitei people reside. The administration could not stop the murders or arrest the gunmen. The least they can do it to recover bodies of our people so they can be buried in our land.'
Senior Manipur police officials said that none of the missing cases has been closed.
Even two years after the violence, at the Classic Hotel in Imphal, CBI still has a helpdesk named 'CBI reception' urging people to come forward with information about the crimes of the Manipur conflict. The hotel's fourth floor is still the agency's makeshift office for its investigators.
One officer at the hotel, who asked not to be named, said, 'The state is finally limping back to normalcy. Now that violence is reducing, sooner or later, some person will come forward with information that will help us. It may take time, but the location of the bodies can't be a secret forever."