Year since con‡ict, kin of missing Meiteis in Delhi seek closure
Nearly six months after her 19-year-old son Anthony went missing upon crossing the buer zone, Premlata Ningthoujam keeps a plate out for him even today while they eat their daily meals. A tradition in Meitei communities, the practice is something families follow in the hopes that their loved ones will return. “Every time we clear the untouched plate, our hearts break all over again,” Ms. Ningthoujam said.
She was among dozens of people who arrived in Delhi on Thursday in a bid to make an appeal to nd their loved ones — people who were reported to have gone missing in the course of the ethnic con¥ict in Manipur, which began one year ago on May 3, 2023.
A group of Meitei civil society organisations had brought the families together for a press meet at the Press Club of India in New Delhi, stating that there was still no news of 31 people from the community who had gone missing during the con¥ict. As the families addressed the press, a poster behind them had pictures of those missing, with the phrase: “Let them Rest in Peace, #Justice4MissingMeeteis”.
In the one year of the con¥ict between the valley-based Meitei people and the hills-based Kuki-Zo tribals, over 220 people have been killed, thousands of others have been injured, and tens of thousands of people have been internally displaced. Amid this, while the Meitei community has said that there was no news of 31 of their people still missing, the Kuki-Zo people have said 15 of theirs were still unaccounted for.
Ex-journalist missing
In the national capital for the gathering, 47-year-old Kabita Atom said: “I last saw my husband on May 6 last year. That afternoon, he was visiting a friend and he told me on the phone that he would be back soon. We never saw him after that.” A former journalist, Atom Samarendra, along with his friend Y. Kiran Kumar, had gone missing that day.
“If he is alive, then we request that he be released and if not, at least his remains should be sent back to us for the last rites,” she said, adding that while the Manipur police registered a First Information Report that very day, they had not got in touch with them since about the probe.