Neither dead nor alive: Search for Manipur's missing haunts families

For nearly 21 months Ngamkholin Haokip (45) refused to allow leaders of his tribal community to put his missing daughter's photograph, beside hundreds of other photographs at the Kangpokpi town's Wall of Remembrance — a memorial in the middle of the town with pictures of those killed in Manipur's ethnic clashes.

- Prawesh Lama

Haokip's daughter, Hoineilam (27), a Kuki-Zo tribal, went missing on May 4, 2023, from the state capital Imphal — a day after ethnic clashes between Meitei and Kuki-Zo groups started across the state. Hoineilam was not among the 25-30 thousand Kuki-Zo people rescued from the valley districts by security forces and shifted to the hills for their safety. Her body was also not among those found charred, lynched, shot, or stabbed to death in the valley during the first few days of the clashes. Two years later, it had still not been found. And so, sometime in February this year, Haokip allowed his daughter's photograph to be put up among the dead — the most recent addition in the wall of at least 150 such photographs.

In Imphal valley, for nearly a year, former Manipur police officer, S Ibungobi, refused to hold his missing son's funeral. Ibungobi is the father of P Hemanjit Singh (20), the young Meitei man who was abducted along them surrounded by armed men. Another photo showed them lying dead on the ground. As the photographs went viral, outrage turned to protests, and senior CBI officers were flown in from New Delhi to recover the bodies.

But despite police, paramilitary forces and CBI teams conducting extensive searches in the hill districts of Churachandpur and Kangkopki, the bodies could not be found. Sometime in August 2024, Ibungobi held his son's funeral. A banana stem was used as a replica for Singh's body, according to the local ritual.

In the ongoing ethnic conflict between the state's two communities that has left at least 260 dead and rendered nearly 60000 homeless, there are at least three dozen cases of people reported missing, feared killed and secretly buried in areas where the communities cannot enter because both Meiteis and Kuki-Zos have retreated to their respective strongholds.