Manipur Woman's Churachandpur House Was Bombed, Now She Fights For Internally Displaced People

A woman from Manipur's Meitei community whose house in Churachandpur was razed with explosives met a top judicial officer of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) in Delhi, seeking relief and legal aid for internally displaced people in the border state.

Naorem Rojita Devi, 43, who has been living at a relief camp with her husband and three children in Bishnupur district, in a letter to the Centre and some Union ministries described the condition of internally displaced people from the Meitei community and what kind of help they need the most.

NALSA responded to her letter, after which she and two other displaced people accompanied by relief volunteers met NALSA Member Secretary In-Charge SC Munghate in the national capital. Ms Devi submitted a 20-point appeal to help people displaced by the ethnic clashes that began nearly two years ago.

Mr Munghate will raise the 20-point appeal in a meeting with Supreme Court judge Justice BR Gavai, Ms Devi said.

Justice Gavai is also the Executive Chairman of NALSA. He led a team of Supreme Court judges on a visit to Manipur where they met internally displaced people living at relief camps. NALSA was formed in November 1995 under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. It coordinates and monitors the functioning of legal services institutions across India for proper implementation of legal aid programmes.

"It took three years to build our house. We saw it reduced to rubble in a few seconds," Ms Devi told NDTV in Delhi, where she also participated in a sit-in to seek safe passage to the Meitei's sacred hilltop shrine in Koubru Ching (hill).

The Kuki tribes have also blocked members of the Meitei community from coming to the hills for their annual summer pilgrimage in southern Manipur's Thangjing Ching.

"We have been asking the authorities for the last two years to ensure an environment where all displaced people can return home after rebuilding. We were born in Churachandpur. We have land pattas (documents)," Ms Devi told NDTV on Tuesday.

"I grew up here, got married here, gave birth to my three children here... I wish we could get proper security to go back and at least assess our losses. We will not survive without compensation," Ms Devi said.

She said her family has been surviving on savings, and it is fast depleting.

Her husband, Naorem Ibomcha Meitei, 44, ran a licenced gun shop in Churachandpur before the ethnic violence broke out in May 2023. Kuki mobs looted the gun shop on May 3, 2023 and CCTV footage captured the incident, according to a first information report (FIR) filed by the family.

The mobs ransacked their house and burned furniture and documents before the security forces rescued the family, Ms Devi said in the FIR.

Mr Ibomcha Meitei was detained by the Assam Rifles in June 2019 while transporting advanced rifle scopes from the border trading town Moreh to Imphal.

Ms Devi alleged not a single firearm which was looted on May 3 from their licenced gun shop has been recovered or returned.

Her 20-point request to the Centre and other authorities for helping Meiteis living in relief camps includes identity cards for internally displaced people (IDPs) linked to Aadhaar, mental trauma counseling, providing education, insurance policy for IDPs, land protection, resettlement of Meitei community, and student allowances, among others.

"Establish priority education policies for IDP children, guaranteeing access to quality education in government and private institutions. Provide comprehensive scholarships and allowances to IDP students, covering tuition fees, educational material, and related expenses. Develop skill-based training centres to facilitate job placements. Implement government-sponsored job placement programmes within and outside the state," one of the 20 points said.

"Completely Erased"

An association of hundreds of Meitei families who have been living in Churachandpur since 1953 told NDTV that claims by some "misinformed Kukis" that Meiteis don't have land ownership in Churachandpur, a hill area, is a "blatant lie".

The Khumujamba Meitei Leikai Patta-Dar (Land Owner) Association alleged Meitei families in Churachandpur had been living under conditions of discrimination long before the May 2023 clashes broke out.

"For many years before May 2023, Meiteis and other non-Kuki communities living in Kuki areas were denied their rights, their faith mocked, and their way of life disrespected. Kuki miscreants would call names to Meiteis living in Churachandpur, deny access to markets, not allow Meitei families to run small shops, take goods by force and not pay, apart from two dozen Kuki terrorist groups taking illegal taxes from us," Mr Ibomcha Meitei told reporters in July 2024, when the viral video of his house being demolished with explosives surfaced.

Manipur is geographically divided into hill and valley regions. The land system comprises surveyed and unsurveyed land. All the valley districts are survey land, and the hill districts have both surveyed and unsurveyed land.

"No one ever bothered to hear about our plight just because we were seen as the majority community, which is a big lie. All the Chin-Kuki and their ethnically linked tribes combined in the region outnumber every other community such as Meiteis, Nagas, Tamils, Nepalis, Muslims, etc. Being mislabeled as a member of the so-called majority community, but in reality living as a minority in a Kuki-dominated area has been a tragic irony and nightmare for us, all our lives," Mr Ibomcha Meitei said.

In September 2023, visuals confirmed that an entire colony in Churachandpur where the Meitei community used to live was flattened and any sign of its existence erased. Ronald Meisnam, 38, who lived in Mandop Leikai, was horrified to see a flattened plot of land where his house stood.

"Our house and other Meitei homes have been flattened in a systematic way by using heavy machines as if they are the rightful owners of our plots," Mr Meisnam, in tears, said. He holds a BE (Electronics and Communications) degree from the Manipur Institute of Technology.

"The police in Churachandpur, who are well aware of these unlawful acts, have not taken any action against the culprits," he alleged.

While the Meitei community claims nearly all properties in the state capital Imphal, a valley area, owned by the Kuki tribes remain standing under the watch of the security forces, the Kuki tribes and their civil society organisations say their community suffered more casualties, lived through intense harassment and hounding by Meitei mobs when the clashes began. The Kukis claim nearly all their properties in Imphal were destroyed.

Many Kuki houses in Imphal have been occupied by Meitei armed groups, according to Kuki civil society organisations.

"The Games Village in Langol has become barracks for numerous Meitei armed groups. We have visual evidence of gates marked with acronyms such as AT, UNLF, etc," a Kuki leader based in Delhi told NDTV in July 2024, referring to the Arambai Tenggol and the United National Liberation Front, whose Pambei faction signed a ceasefire deal with the Centre and the state government in November 2023.

The ethnic violence between the valley-dominant Meitei community and nearly two dozen tribes known as Kukis, who are dominant in some hill areas of Manipur, has killed over 260 people and internally displaced nearly 50,000.