How armed outsiders and a radical militia shattered the peace in Manipur’s Jiribam

On June 7, Ngurthansang fled his home in Manipur’s Jiribam district, as violence caught up with an area that had, for over a year, been relatively buffered from the ethnic clashes in the rest of the state.

With 80-odd Hmar families, Ngurthansang moved to Lakhipur in neighbouring Assam, just across the Jiri river. The 33-year-old, his wife and three children spent four months in a relief camp in Hmarkhawlien, a Hmar village in Lakhipur.

In October, as peace slowly returned to Jiribam, and the school in which his wife worked reopened, the family made its way back to their home in Zairawn, a Hmar village. “Things were peaceful but all the villagers would stay together at night, and some men from the village would guard us,” Ngurthansang told Scroll.

On November 7, however, the village came under attack allegedly by members of the armed Meitei group Arambai Tenggol. Ngurthansang’s wife, a 31-year-old teacher, was tortured, allegedly raped and burnt to death.

The raid on Zairawn was the start of a new cycle of violence in which women and children have been ruthlessly targeted.

Four days later, a group of armed Hmar men attacked a relief camp in the district and abducted six women and children – one an eight-month-old infant...

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