Boxing crawls back towards revival in strife-torn Manipur

Sarita Devi was devastated when she heard the news of a promising young boxer losing his life in the ethnic violence that had gripped Manipur.

- Avishek Roy

As fate would have it, Thingom Rocky Meitei, a state medallist in boxing, belonged to her academy, and only a few months before Manipur plunged into turmoil, Sarita and her husband Thoiba had seen him off to his village where he was taking care of his ailing mother.

Sarita -- a former world championship medallist -- still regrets not having the time to enquire about Thingom when riots broke in his village Torbung, even as she got busy looking after coaches and families of other boxers who had been displaced due to the strife.

"It was heart-breaking. He was such a sweet boy and so dedicated to boxing. We later came to know that his family had to shift to a relief camp after their house was torched. Thingom had joined village volunteer groups and in one of the violent incidents he lost his life," Sarita told HT. "A coach from our academy was also in trouble. His house was burnt. He and his family managed to escape. We brought them to our academy."