A Life Stolen Twice: The Story of Nengtinlhing Haokip

When the ethnic conflict between the Meiteis and the Kuki-Zo community initially broke out on the 3rd of May 2023, Nengtinlhing had gone to the home of her friend who was married to a Muslim. Her phone battery was down due to a power cut and when she finally managed to call her parents from a friend’s phone sometime that night, her parents informed her that they had been kicked out from the Meitei-owned house in which they had been hiding. She was thus advised to stay hidden at her friend’s house. In the following days, members of the Kuki-Zo community sought safe haven in various army, paramilitary and police camps from where they were eventually evacuated en-masse on the 8th of May 2023 under heavy military escort.

In a tragic turn of events for Nengtinlhing, while the rest of her community was evacuated, Nengtinlhing was left behind as she was hiding out at a friend’s home and not in one of the shelters or camps. To understand how that situation came about, one has to truly understand the extent of terror that the Meitei community had unleashed in and around the Imphal valley during those early days. With or without weapons, members of the Meitei community pounced upon and seized every member of the Kuki-Zo community they could lay their hands on. If the victims were men, they were tortured and killed. If the victims were women, they were sexually assaulted and then killed. With regards to the violence towards women, on June 12, 2023, the North American Manipur Tribal Association (NAMTA) along with two other women activists had appraised the Nation Commission for Women (NCW) of six instances of sexual violence against Kuki-Zo women in and around the Imphal valley. Nengtinlhing’s case was one of them. In such an environment, Nengtinlhing had to remain hidden alone, unable to reach the safe havens where the rest of her community had taken shelter.

Eventually, on the 15th of May 2023, she contacted her mother who had already been evacuated safely to Kangpokpi and decided to make her own way out of Imphal. Her friends outside the state had sent her some money and she had gone to withdraw the money at an ATM located near Baby Seikam School in New Checkon with her friend at around 5PM when four Meitei youths in a purple Maruti Swift car accosted her and asked her for her Aadhaar card to check her identity. She told them that she had left it at home in a bid to hide her identity but they knew eventually and told her that she being a Kuki, they could not let her live. They abducted her and took her to Wangkhei Ayangpalli where they called the members of the Meira Paibi who began to assault her physically. Later, a video clip from the scene went viral in which the women can be seen handing her over to the men encouraging them to torture and rape the girl, her cries and pleas with folded hands and the terrified expression of the then 18 year old failing to elicit mercy and humanity from her own gender. Then four members of Arambai Tenggol took her away in a white Bolero, beating her along the way.

The men then took her to Langgol hill, taunting her that they would kill her in her own land, as parts of the Langgol hill range often is disputed to be under the administration of Kangpokpi district. She fell on her knees and begged the oldest man to let her live, promising that she would never return to Imphal and that she just wanted to see her parents. Her pleas went ignored. Fearing that a gunshot would catch the attention of security forces nearby, they then drove her to another hilly location where they continued beating her up, using a combination of their limbs and the butts of their guns. Her head throbbed, her ribs cracked, her lips were split, her ears bled. She fell in and out of consciousness. As the rain woke her up sometime later, the men slapped her again and promised to spare her life in return for sexual favours. She refused and was promptly knocked down and the men began their sexual assault. The three younger men took turns raping her while the oldest one watched. They even talked of sodomy, but her young age deterred them. The blood from her ears, face and head had by then drenched her entire body in red. Her ordeal had gone on throughout the night.

In the early hours of the 16th of May 2023 before daylight, she managed to escape by rolling down the hill. On the road at the bottom of the hill, she saw a light from an auto-rickshaw and fortunately for her, the driver, a Meitei-pangal (Meitei Muslim), seeing the condition she was in, decided to help her. He hid her in his stack of vegetables and took her to the Bishnupur police station. The men later ran after her and chased her to the police station, firing along the way but drove away as one of the VDFs on duty went to check their vehicle. Their haste in chasing after her seems to stem from the fact that in her statement to the police, Miss Nengtinlhing states that there was some disagreement among the four Arambai Tenggol members about whether to kill her or let her live. They had warned her that if she ever filed an FIR, they would come and find her and kill her. That would explain their initial hesitation to run after her immediately after she escaped.

Being informed that the officer in charge of the station would only return later that day, the auto driver asked her if he should wait with her there or take her home. Suspicious of any Meitei and fearful of the environment, even though it was a police station, she asked the auto driver to take her to New Checkon. At that time, a few households of members of the Kuki-Zo community were still holding out in their homes around the New Checkon and New Lambulane area under heavy central forces protection. She was taken to the house of T.T.Haokip, an ex-MLA and prominent member of the Kuki community where she was given treatment. She was then safely evacuated to Kangpokpi district where she was taken to Kangpokpi District Hospital but was referred to Kohima as her condtion was critical.

Medical records indicate that she had been gangraped and suffered severe injuries to her genitals, her head and body in various places. Over the years, she was taken to various hospitals for treatment, the last one being an operation in October of 2025 in Guwahati but the treatments and operations took a toll on her physical being. Added to the physical trauma, her mental health took a turn for the worse with each passing day. For almost three years she remained bedridden. Traumas, insomnia, depression was her daily routine. Whenever she saw a white Bolero passing by, her body would go numb and she would scream for help. The memories of the assault haunted her till her last breath. She would see their faces, the colors of their shirts. Sometimes she even feared her own brothers. She could not sleep, she would not eat even if her parents forced her to and her body slowly began to wither. The shame she felt in the knowledge that everyone knew what happened to her made her a recluse. Before the assault, she had been a bright, young, and vivacious girl with dreams of opening a beauty parlour. But after the incident, she closed herself off to the world. She stopped interacting with everyone. She stopped going out and stopped talking to her friends. She was dying inside before her physical body too, eventually gave up on her. Last Christmas, she went with her mother to Singngat in Churachandpur to visit her ailing grandmother. It was to be her final few days as on 10 January 2026, she passed away from the unbearable weight of mental trauma and physical deterioration.

An FIR was filed at Kangpokpi police station on 21 July 2023, two months after the incident. Her pain and shame had silenced her for a while but after the video of the two Kuki women being paraded naked and gang-raped by a Meitei mob on 4th May at B. Phainom village went viral on the 19th of July 2023, she found her courage and decided to speak out. Though she did not know the women, she knew instantly what they had gone through. She decided to fight for justice, not just for herself but for all the women who faced this trauma. The case was handed over to the CBI but so far the CBI has not arrested anyone in connection with this assault and the investigation has gone nowhere. She turned to her parents for justice, to her community but justice eluded her. Until her last breath, she cried for justice. But justice for her never came. Not in her lifetime. And as a society, we have to ask ourselves, what do we do with her memory. What do we do with the cause she died for. What do we do for the justice that she sought but never found in her lifetime.