Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam
"The pictures were so difficult to look at. His face was completely disfigured, they had stabbed him in his stomach. To date, I've not seen my husband's dead body," said 25-year-old Chingneihmoi Zou, unable to control her tears as she spoke to The Quint at her house in Manipur's Churachandpur, standing in front of her deceased husband's remembrance banner.
Zou's husband, Thanghoulal, is one of the hundreds who have lost their lives in the violence between the Meiteis and Kukis that Manipur has witnessed over the past two months.
On 4 May, BJP MLA Vungzagin Valte was attacked by a mob in the state capital. While Valte survived and was admitted to a hospital in Delhi, Thanghoulal, who worked as Valte's driver, was brutally lynched. He died on 5 May.
The Quint visited Thanghoulal's family in Churachandpur district and spoke to his wife about the brutal murder.
Thanghoulal's wife, Chingneihmoi Zou, with one of her children.
(Photo: Saptarshi Basak/The Quint)
A remembrance picture of Thanghoulal at his house.
(Photo: Saptarshi Basak/The Quint)
'Still Haven't Seen His Dead Body'
Holding her baby child, with her other young child standing next to her, Zou explained that the day after the tribal unity rally held on 3 May, Chief Minister Biren Singh had called for a meeting.
"I asked him why he had gone to the meeting when such meetings were dangerous. He replied that the CM had called the MLAs for the meeting, and he had to go. He also told me that he will call me once he gets back home. Then he hung up," Zou narrated.
"After a while, I tried to call him again but his phone was switched off. He too didn't call back, so I tried all his numbers. But I just couldn't reach him. After some time, I was able to connect to his friends who told me that on their way back from the meeting, Meitei mobs attacked them and now they are in the ICU (intensive care unit)."Chingneihmoi Zou, Thanghoulal's wife
Zou claimed that Thanghoulal's friends couldn't even give him immediate attention as they first took him to the police station first and then to the hospital.
"They had arranged an air ambulance for Shri Vungzagin. I thought they will take my husband along with Shri Vungzagin but they didn't. While Shri Vungzagin was air-lifted to Delhi on the same day, my husband was kept in RIMS (Regional Institute of Medical Sciences) hospital, Imphal," she lamented.
Covering her face with the shawl that she was wearing, Zou said that her son still runs to the house's gate and asks when his father will come back.
"We can't even go and get my husband's dead body. None of us can go to Imphal. Doing so could cost us our own lives. I still haven't seen my husband's dead body. I don't know the state in which the body will be," Zou said, sobbing.
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