Jiribam family at centre of spiralling violence in Manipur wants to move to safety – but can’t

On Thursday night, the bodies of a woman and two children, believed to be from the same family, were found floating on the river. And on Sunday, two more bodies were found – of another child and Rani Devi – in the river in Lakhipur.

The abduction and death of members of this Meitei family is at the centre of massive protests that have enveloped not just Jiribam but also capital Imphal, where the homes of ministers and MLAs, mostly with the ruling BJP, were attacked by mobs.

But at the relief camp, Sandhya has another worry – she, along with 108 other residents of the camp, including two more of her sister Thoibi’s children, are stranded, unable to leave for the district headquarters.

The inmates are residents of a small cluster of nearby Meitei villages in Borobekra sub-division of Jiribam district, which borders Hmar-majority Pherzawl district. This cluster of villages is surrounded by Hmar and Bengali villages.

A bullet-riddled CRPF vehicle. (Express Photo by Sukrita Baruah)

“We don’t know where we can go but we want to leave from here as soon as we can. If the CRPF were not here that day, we would have all died. If something like that could have happened during the day, what can happen at night?” asked S Thaballei (50), another resident.

Following the attack on the relief camp, the CRPF had gunned down 10 armed men.

The relief camp, inside the premises of the Borobekra police station and next to a CRPF post, is located around 30 km from Jiribam town, where other Meitei residents of the area have been staying since tensions first gripped Borobekra in June. The distance may not look like much, but the long, mostly kachcha road to Jiribam involves crossing many Hmar villages.

“There is no way for them (residents of the relief camp in Borobekra) to travel safely on this route now. The inmates have demanded that they be evacuated to Jiribam town. But arrangements have to be made for that – either special security arrangements or a chopper,” said a Jiribam district police officer.

Sense of safety shattered

While most of the residents of Meitei villages in the area had been evacuated to Jiribam town in June itself, 156 had stayed back in the relief camp in Borobekra.

“Most of the women and children had left but some of us stayed back to look after villages. We were afraid that our villages would get occupied if we all go,” said Oinam Ranjit (45), whose home is in the nearby Harinagar village.

These residents had largely remained in the confines of the relief camp, which they believed to be secure until a couple of weeks ago.

N Biramohan Singh, secretary of the camp, said that in October-end, the camp’s residents began to venture out to their villages for work because of a period of relatively calm and the presence of a CRPF post in the market. Those who ran shops in Jakuradhor market, which was burned down in Monday’s attack, started to resume their businesses in the weeks preceding the attack.

Y Rani Devi and her daughters also revived their tea and snacks shop during this period, which is where they were during the time of the attack. Sandhya, who runs another shop, was in her house at the time.

Sandhya Devi (33) saw these images too, sitting at a relief camp in Borobekra in Manipur’s Jiribam district, where she finds herself trapped now. (Express Photo by Sukrita Baruah)

“Suddenly I got a call from my mother in the afternoon, telling me that attackers are coming and I should run. That was the last contact I had with her. When I tried calling her after that, her phone was unreachable,” she said.

Biramohan said that people would leave for work by 6-7 am and return before dark. “They (the attackers) knew that we would be outside during that time,” he said.

Since the attack, none of the residents have even left the gate of the police station premises. A security source said that despite the presence of six CRPF posts around the relief camp and personnel from Borobekra police station, people in the camp were the target of the attackers. The attack, security officials believe, was in retaliation for the killing of a 31-year-old Hmar woman in Zairawm village.