Mass burial of 23 Kuki victims held in Manipur

The 55-year-old has spent the last seven months waiting. On May 4, as Manipur began to burn, with ethnic clashes of a scale it had never seen before, he waited for news of his 23-year-old daughter who eked out a living at a car wash store in Imphal, 25 km away from their village in Kangpokpi district.

- Utpal Parashar

By May 5, he received the horrifying news that she and her friend, both from the same village, had been allegedly chased, raped, and killed by a rampaging mob.

Since that day, he has waited some more for justice that is yet to arrive, for a semblance of normalcy that has remained elusive; the family now lives in a relief camp in Saikhul. But most of all, he has waited for his daughter's body that lay in an Imphal morgue.

On Friday, the grieving father stood next to a coffin that ensconced his daughter's body, and watched, as she, along with 22 others, was lowered into the ground at Phajiang village in Kangpokpi. There was, at last, a little smidgeon of closure. "It is a big relief for the family to get the body of my daughter back after seven months, and bury her ahead of Christmas. But apart from the mass burial, I would like to perform a memorial service later at the relief camp in Saikul where we all now live," he said.