Indian ‘martyrs’ go unburied during crucial state election in Manipur

The body of Pausuan Lian has lain in a hospital mortuary for more than 500 days since he was shot dead during a land protest in India’s Manipur state but his family is still refusing to allow his burial.

“All nine martyrs, including my son, will stay in the morgue until justice is done,” his mother Hau Lian Ching said ahead of a two-phase state election in Manipur which begins on Saturday. “The demands of our people must be met before we can bury them.”

The 18-year-old was one of six people who were killed in August 2015 when police opened fire at a rally in the mainly tribal Churachandpur district against three land bills that had been introduced in the state assembly.

A subsequent flare-up in violence left another three locals dead and further highlighted the tensions in the remote northeastern state, a three-hour flight from New Delhi.

Like much of the northeast, Manipur – which shares its eastern border with Myanmar – has long been plagued by sporadic separatist unrest and ongoing feuds between different tribal and ethnic groups.

But the deaths in Churachandpur have heightened the anger of tribal groups who had already come to regard the land bills as part of a plot by the majority Meitei community to deprive them of their ancestral rights. A group from one of the state’s largest minority tribes, the Naga, launched a blockade of the main highway into the state capital Imphal in November, leading to shortages and big price hikes for basic commodities.