‘Sleepless nights’: cop concerned about 6 missing family members

Along with Heitonbi and her children, her mother Rani Devi, sister Thoibi Devi and niece are missing. Search operations by security forces have not yet yielded information on their whereabouts.

“I have been spending sleepless nights since they went missing. I’m so helpless and at my wits end as to what to do. Yes, I am a policeman but given the situation and the distance I cannot just venture out on my own and go rescue them,” sighed Herojit, a constable in Manipur police posted in Imphal East district.

Herojit said that his wife and children left Imphal district for Jiribam on August 25 last year. Since she was expecting their second child, he said he thought that they would be taken care of better in Jiribam at his in-law’s house.

“Back then Jiribam was very peaceful. I thought that since I was always busy they would be given extra care,” he said. “I used to talk to them often over the phone, sometimes on video call. The day before they went missing, my wife called me in the morning to ask how I was”.

He said that he got a sudden panicked call from his wife on Monday afternoon.

“She said, ‘Tamo, the situation here has worsened. We’re surrounded by armed men’ and started crying. After a brief conversation, she hung up. I heard gunshots in the backdrop. I was helpless. The very same day, I was also stationed at Yaingangpokpi where violence erupted after armed miscreants launched an attack on farmers,” said Herojit.

He said that an hour later, she got a call from his wife’s niece informing him that some of their neighbours saw his family being ferried away across the river by armed miscreants in a boat.

“I was stunned and helpless. They are innocents. They have not wronged anyone,” he said.