Manipur’s ‘unknown’ killers: Three years of India’s bloody ethnic conflict

Manipur, India – The loud wails of a 37-year-old nurse pierce the air as she crouches near two coffins to grieve the killing of her infant daughter and five-year-old son in a blast last month. A woman tries to comfort the mother as dozens of men and women, most of them dressed in ceremonial white, congregate on top of a truck carrying the two coffins and around the vehicle in Tronglaobi town in Bishnupur district of northeastern India’s Manipur state. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list The last rites of the two children were held on Saturday, nearly a month after an improvised RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) hit their home on April 7, killing the children and wounding their mother while they were sleeping. Their father, a paramilitary soldier with India’s Border Security Force (BSF), was on duty hundreds of kilometres away in Bihar state when he came to know of the killing. He had been waiting to return home to celebrate his daughter turning six months old this month. “Just the previous evening, I had called my wife. She gave the phone to our daughter. She hadn’t even learned to speak yet, but she recognised my voice. I was trying to make her say ‘papa’,” the soldier told Al Jazeera. …