Love Across Ethnic Lines: A Kuki-Zo Woman’s Devastating Price in Manipur’s Divide
The tragic story of Chingnu Haokip, a Kuki-Zo woman from Manipur, highlights the profound human cost of the state’s ongoing ethnic conflict. Her inter-community relationship with a Meitei man has left her isolated, traumatized, and hospitalized.
In the hills of Churachandpur, inside a psychiatric ward, Chingnu Haokip communicates mostly through nods. She barely eats, often vomits what little she manages, and at times mutters in a language her family cannot understand. Doctors have diagnosed her with acute depression triggered by severe trauma. Family members attempt to speak with her, but she remains largely unresponsive and withdrawn.
This heartbreaking condition stems directly from the killing of her partner, Mayanglambam Rishikanta Singh, a 31-year-old Meitei man. On January 21, 2026, Rishikanta was abducted along with Chingnu from their residence in Tuibong, Churachandpur district. He was shot dead point-blank in Natjang village under Henglep police station, an incident captured in a viral video that showed him pleading for his life before collapsing. The killing, suspected to involve armed militants, sent shockwaves across Manipur and intensified ethnic tensions.
Rishikanta, who had been working in Nepal, returned to Manipur in December 2025 to be with Chingnu. Reports indicate he had even adopted a tribal name, Ginminthang, possibly to facilitate living in a Kuki-Zo dominated area. The couple’s relationship, once a symbol of possible harmony, became untenable amid the deep mistrust that has defined the state since the ethnic violence erupted in May 2023 between the Meitei majority in the Imphal Valley and the Kuki-Zo tribes in the hills.
Following Rishikanta’s death, Chingnu faced rejection from both communities. In Meitei areas, some voices demanded her arrest or questioned her role, viewing her suspiciously due to the circumstances of the killing. Among the Kuki-Zo, she was branded a “traitor” for loving and living with a man from the opposing side. This dual ostracism compounded her grief, pushing her into profound emotional collapse. Just days after her partner’s funeral in Kakching district, she was admitted to the psychiatric facility in Churachandpur.
The broader conflict has claimed over 260 lives, displaced thousands, and erected invisible but impenetrable barriers between communities. Inter-ethnic relationships, which were more common and socially accepted before 2023, have become rare and perilous. Couples have been forced to separate, face threats, or endure worse fates as personal bonds fall victim to collective hatred and suspicion.
Chingnu Haokip’s story is a stark reminder of the invisible wounds that persist long after the gunfire stops. Her silence in the hospital ward speaks volumes about the shattered lives left in the wake of Manipur’s ethnic divide—where love, once a bridge, has become another casualty of division.
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