Jiribam family at centre of spiralling violence in Manipur wants to move to safety – but can’t | Long Reads News
On Sunday morning, shortly after the body of a woman was found in the Barak river in Assam’s Cachar district, photos and videos spread like wildfire on social media. Sandhya Devi (33) saw these images too, sitting at a relief camp in Borobekra in Manipur’s Jiribam district, where she finds herself trapped now. She immediately recognised who it was – her 61-year-old mother Y Rani Devi, who had been abducted from the camp last week. It was on November 11 that the relief camp came under attack by armed men – the Manipur police claim they were Hmar militants – and by evening, residents found that her mother, two sisters Thoibi and Heitonbi, and three nieces and nephews were missing. On Thursday night, the bodies of a woman and two children, believed to be from the same family, were found floating on the river. And on Sunday, two more bodies were found – of another child and Rani Devi – in the river in Lakhipur. The abduction and death of members of this Meitei family …