A picture is said to speak a thousand words. But in beleaguered Manipur, it brings out much more—of flowing tears, raging anger and vicious hatred.
That was what happened on Monday when two photos of two Meitei students— Hijam Linthoingambi, 17, and Phijam Hemjit, 20—went viral. One photo shows the boy and the girl together in a forested location with two armed men in the backdrop, the second shows the two slumped in the undergrowth seemingly after being killed.
While the bodies of the duo are yet to be recovered, sloganeering school students in Imphal Valley hit the streets in protest on Tuesday as the security forces used mob-control techniques including firing of tear gas canisters.
On Tuesday evening, the government ordered closure of all state schools and colleges for the rest of the week.
The two students—Linthoingambi and Hemjit—had been missing since July 6 and the parents had been running from pillar to post trying to locate their whereabouts.
Both the students were from Imphal West. While Linthoingambi was a student of the TG Girl’s Higher Secondary school, Hemjit had passed out his twelfth from Datamatic School.
“They were last seen at a coaching centre at Keisamphat. A CCTV footage from Nambol Bazar had also shown them riding a KTM bike,” a Meitei person told THE WEEK on condition of anonymity.
But the surfacing of the two photos may have confirmed the worst fears of the parents.
“There were also rumours that the girl’s (Linthoingambi) mobile phone was used by a lady in Churachandpur although it could never be confirmed because of the prevailing situation,” the person added.
In mid July, it was the video of two Kuki women who were sexually assaulted and brutalized by a Meitei mob. The incident had taken place on May 4—just a day after widespread ethnic violence was sparked off by a scuffle in Churachandpur during a protest by tribal students. The viral clip had led to nationwide condemnation and indignant international reaction.
“We hear randomly about the existence of similar pictures and videos. Of course, they cannot be confirmed till the time they surface. But the problem is that they carry in them the seeds of more violence and fear. They are the real time bombs,” another Imphal-based source said.
Undoubtedly, photos and videos are the new weapons in Manipur.
In a state of myriad ethnicity-based insurgencies inundated with illegal weapons of all makes and types, the recent spate of looting has only added to the illegal stash.
Extensive rioting had broken out even as rampaging mobs indulged in looting sprees of weapons from police armouries both in the valley and in the hills on the days of May 3, May 4, May 6, May 28 and May 29.
About 4,537 weapons including at least 174 AK-47s, 551 INSAS rifles and 101 LMGs, 406 carbines, five 51 mm mortars, 503 pistols besides more than 5 lakh rounds of ammunition were looted.
On top of that, in the tribal-dominated hills where hunting is a way of life, almost every family keeps a licensed single or doubled barreled shotgun. “They may be crude but they are more than enough to kill,” says the source.
But in the background, it is the battle of narratives that furiously rage.
The poppy fields and the narcotics angle signifying a drug war, the issue of illegal immigrants from Myanmar, a binary Hindu-Christian religious colour to the ongoing turmoil, internal political feuds within the state’s ruling elite, and to top it all, the insurgency factor are all strands in the war of narratives.
Whatever the truth, the fact is that the social fabric of Manipur’s society has come totally apart. And the possibility of wide open split being closed is near inconceivable at this point of time.