People abandon homes, recount hours of horror

SILCHAR/AIZAWL: For the past two days, 43-year-old L Muangpu, a Kuki tribal resident of Manipur’s Jiribam district, has remained cloistered indoors, increasingly afraid of the sounds of ethnic violence roiling the northeastern state creeping closer to his remote village.

At 10pm on Thursday, the fear hit home.

“It took a few minutes to realise that we were being attacked. The mob was pelting stones, trying to burn our homes, and threatening us. They kept chanting, this is our final war.”

By sunrise, Muangpu had made up his mind. In the afternoon, he fled the village of his ancestors, the only home he had ever known, and crossed over into Assam’s Cachar district.

Muangpu is one of at least 1,100 residents of Manipur’s Jiribam and surrounding regions who crossed state borders into neighbouring Assam, fleeing the violence that has besieged Manipur. Clashes first broke out on Wednesday after tribal Kuki groups called for protests against a proposed tweak to the state’s reservation matrix, granting scheduled tribe (ST) status to the majority Meitei community. Violence quickly engulfed the state.

On Friday, acknowledging the influx, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, “Several families affected by the recent incidents in Manipur have sought refuge in Assam. I have requested the district administration of Cachar to take care of them.”

Numal Mahatta, superintendent of police of Cachar, said that the migration into Assam began at around 11 pm on Thursday, and continued through Friday. Each of those who crossed over had a harrowing tale.

Twenty-four-year-old Vahcy Khongsai, also from Jiribam, said that in her locality, Meitei and Kuki representatives held a peace meeting on Thursday and said both sides would protect the other.

“But when night fell, we realised that it was a fake agreement. They attempted to burn our homes. The men in our area risked their lives to protect us.”