Kamal Ghorui
For months, Meitei-Kuki couples across Manipur believed they had reached the safest point they were likely to get, fragile but predictable, after the violence that erupted in 2023. On Jan 21, that calm broke.Mayanglambam Rishikanta Singh, a 31-year-old Meitei man who had been working in Nepal, was abducted and shot dead in Churachandpur. Singh had quietly entered the Kuki-majority district on Dec 19 via Aizawl, Mizoram, to dodge the buffer-zone checkpoints between Imphal and Churachandpur, kin close to the family of his fiancee Chingnu Haokip said. He had come to see Chingnu after she sought permission from local authorities and representatives of Kuki National Organisation – an umbrella body of Kuki insurgent outfits under the Suspension of Operation agreement – and had lived with her for nearly a month before the killing. Officials later confirmed that Singh was abducted by armed militants from the Tuibong area and taken to a village under Henglep police station, where he was shot dead on camera. The chilling video circulated widely. It showed Singh kneeling with folded hands before armed men, prompting Churachandpur police to register a suo motu FIR.Meitei-Kuki couples trapped in separation and fear as Manipur killing further deepens divide Chingnu Haokip was taken alongside him during the abduction but was beaten and thrown out of a moving vehicle, her family said. She was admitted to a trauma ward in Churachandpur, where doctors found her suffering from acute depression and shock. In hospital, she would answer with nods and could not hold on to what she ate, her loss too great to bear. A further blow followed: both sides of the ethnic divide ostracised her, with many accusing her of betrayal and circulating threats on social messaging groups.Chingnu has since been discharged from hospital, but remains in no condition to speak. Her family told TOI, “We do not want any more trouble”.The killing didn’t spill into fresh violence across Manipur, as many feared. In Imphal and Churachandpur, schools stayed open. Offices functioned. Roads reopened intermittently. But something shifted.In Kuki-majority Churachandpur, Icham Haokip, 34, is a Meitei woman who married into the Kuki community in 2010. Icham lost her husband, Lalneo, during the early phase of the violence. She stayed back in the hills with their five children, aged between eight and 15, and rebuilt a life that no longer depended on movement. “I don’t feel threatened here,” she said. “People know me. I have been accepted into the Kuki community. But the killing of Rishikanta tells you something — how vulnerable these relationships still are.”Across, in Meitei-majority Imphal valley, separation has been a defining condition since mid-2023 for Meitei-Kuki couples. Many were forced apart during evacuations, fleeing in opposite directions for safety. Over time, it became routine — marriages sustained through phone calls, reunions deferred without timelines. Late last year, there were faint signs the worst might be over. Some couples began, carefully, to plan. The murder on Jan 21 shook everything again.Thogjam Haokip, 70, a retired Kuki church pastor, has been married to his Meitei wife Kim, 50, for three decades. Their marriage predates the conflict. “We are not afraid. But we are not blind,” Kim said. We often think about how things would have turned out had we been living in another place. Would we be safe elsewhere? The thought gnaws at us.” The killings have deepened fear and stalled fragile hopes.
