‘My niece is traumatised... she hardly speaks’

Our families have been living in unimaginable trauma since May 3rdquo says 37yearold modelactor Lin Laishram On June 17 Mumbaibased Laishram who belongs to the Meitei tribe of Manipur led a protest at Azad Maidan demanding intervention in her volatile homelandThe ongoing conflict in Manipur between the two ethnic groupsmdashKuki and Meiteimdashhas led to widespread violence and death Laishram has a lot of Kuki friends and admits that the situation has been awkward but ldquoI do check up on them asking if they are okay or whether they have eaten and if they are saferdquo ldquoWe cannot lose our humanity in this bloodshedrdquo she says ldquoI want peace this brutal violence has to come to an endrdquoLaishramrsquos parents and brother live in the Imphal East district where for the last many days there has been no internet ldquoMy parents are in their 70s When the violence broke out I told them to come to Mumbai They said that they would not leave their motherland It was hard for me to hear thisrdquo she says ldquoI havenrsquot even seen their faces as I canrsquot make a video callrdquo Her nephews and nieces are having a difficult time as well ldquoThe children are not sleeping enough They can hear the sound of gunfire the burning homes and screams This is just adding to their anxietyrdquoSomatai Raleng and Byum RipunjoyThe multiple curfews have also made it impossible to coordinate relief work Laishram and some of her Manipuri friends in Mumbai have been trying to send out food and other essentials via the womenrsquos group Meira Paibi which dates back to the time when the Armed Forces Special Powers Act AFSPA 1958 was enacted in the northeast stateByum Ripunjoy an associate director with the Amazon Prime series Criminal Minds fears there will be an agrarian crisis in the valley soon ldquoRice cultivation usually takes place during this season But no one has been able to go to the paddy fields so the whole valley and hills will be seeing a food shortage next year This is the part that really scares merdquo he saysRipunjoy who belongs to the Meitei community says that the Centre will have to step in and stop the violence ldquoMy sisters children have not be able to attend school since Maymdashthe way things are going there will be no board examination in Manipur next yearrdquo he saysManipur has three main tribesmdashthe Meiteis the Nagas and the Kukis The Meiteis constitute 53 per cent of the total population and are primarily settled in the Valley districts of East and West Imphal The Nagas 17 per cent and Kuki communities 26 per cent are part of the Scheduled Tribes in the state According to reports one of the immediate triggers for the ethnic violence was the contentious March 27 High Court order which had directed the State government to recommend the inclusion of the Meitei community in the Scheduled Tribes list The Manipur HC on June 19 admitted a review petition seeking to modify its orderThe reality is that no group has been untouched by the violence Lett Kuki who has been working in Mumbai for over a decade got a call from his uncle on May 4 The family home was plundered and burned ldquoMy uncle stays in a predominantly Kuki colony within Imphal city a day after the violence broke out a group of men barged into the society and started ransacking homes My uncle and aunt and their son and daughter managed to escape only with some clothesrdquo he says ldquoThey hid in a Naga colony next door The following day when they called their neighbours they learnt that their home had been burned down In fact someone sent my uncle a video of his house going up in flames and told him not to returnrdquoThe family somehow made their way to a camp Lett was able to fly out his uncle and aunt to Guwahati ldquoMy nephew had already completed his first year in BA but the certificate was burnt along with the house he has taken admission to a college in Mumbai and will be repeating the year again My niece on the other hand is traumatised She is staying with my other cousin in Mumbai but hardly speaks The family is grieving the loss of their home and the life that they were forced to leave behindrdquoSomatai Raleng president of Tangkhul Welfare Society Mumbai is a Naga Manipuri He reveals that while his community is not a stakeholder in the conflict angry mobs do not care for these distinctions or nuances ldquoFour women who were on their way to Mumbai from Imphal were accosted on the way to the airport They are from Mumbai and were on an holiday in Manipur One of them was also physically attacked The violence hasnrsquot spared anyonerdquo