Elusive peace: In India’s Manipur, bombs and mortars are civilian weapons

Every time 13-year-old Selina Mairembam tries to write or eat with her right hand, the pain and the scars remind her of the day she was nearly killed by a bomb.

She was knocked out instantly. When she woke up, there was blood everywhere. For a moment, she thought she was dead.Talkative once, Selina now barely speaks. Holding out the jagged pieces of bomb shrapnel that tore through her arm, she whispers to me, “I’m always scared. I don’t want to be scared.”

Selina is the great-granddaughter of Mairembam Koireng Singh, the first chief minister of the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. On September 7, 2024, while she was helping a priest arrange a ritual for her grand-aunt’s death ceremony, a “big rocket” came out of nowhere. She remembers no flash, only the deafening sound – so loud she thought her ears had been blown off.

The improvised bomb struck the house of the former chief minister in the heart of Moirang town, near Loktak Lake, the largest freshwater lake in northeast India.Selina survived with severe injuries, but the missile killed 72-year-old RK Rabei, a priest and event manager. His bloodied body was found by his daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Four-year-old Gianna Rajkumari often wakes up at night, screaming – haunted by the image of her grandfather’s mutilated body.

Palmei Houjellu, Gianna’s mother, was nine months pregnant at the time. The 35-year-old from Moirang had gone with her daughter to attend the ritual organised by her father-in-law.

Just minutes before the attack, Houjellu and Gianna had stepped out for a short five-minute trip home to fetch a few things for the ceremony. That saved them.

A day later, Houjellu gave birth to a baby boy. But even as she cradles new life, death still lingers in their home.

“My daughter saw her grandfather’s bloodied body,” she said. “She still wakes up screaming at night. She keeps asking, ‘Who killed Nana? Why?’ And I have no answer for her.”