Bodies of 10 Hmar men still at mortuary, tensions simmer outside Silchar hospital

After their bodies were recovered from the tract connected Monday, they were taken to Silchar Medical College and Hospital successful neighbouring Assam for post-mortem. However, till Thursday night, the bodies continued to beryllium astatine the mortuary.

A full of 12 bodies were taken for post-mortems to SMCH – the 10 Hmar men and 2 aged Meitei men, who were recovered dormant successful houses aft Monday’s onslaught connected the area. According to infirmary authorities, the post-mortems connected six of the bodies of the Hmar men were conducted connected Tuesday. However, the workout was enactment connected clasp connected Wednesday and nary post-mortems were conducted. Dr Bhaskar Gupta, Chief Superintendent of the hospital, had told The Indian Express that this was due to the fact that the infirmary authorities had not received the indispensable documentation from Jiribam constabulary to proceed with the remainder of the post-mortems.

The post-mortems were resumed connected Thursday day and were completed by the evening. Throughout the day, members of the Hmar assemblage gathered astatine the hospital. By the evening, they grew restive implicit the bodies not being released. Hmar groups person maintained that the men are not “militants” but are “village volunteers” who were retaliating for the sidesplitting of a 31-year-old Hmar pistillate successful Jiribam past week.

“Some of our representatives met the doc successful complaint of forensics who told them that helium had received an bid to behaviour DNA tests with adjacent of kin, who are not present but successful their location villages, for recognition of the bodies… We bash not cognize wherefore determination should beryllium immoderate request for DNA testing. Their bodies are not burned oregon unrecognisable. We person already identified each 10 based connected their appearance,” claimed John Hmar, a person of the Indigenous Tribal Advocacy Forum, a Hmar civilian nine radical based successful Jiribam and Pherzawl.

The Indian Express reached retired to the Superintendent of Police and District Collector of some Jiribam and Cachar arsenic good arsenic infirmary authorities astatine SMCH to inquire wherefore the bodies are continuing to beryllium held, but did not person a effect from immoderate of them.

In the meantime, hunt operations for the 3 Meitiei women and 3 children who person been missing from Borobekra since Monday’s unit did not output immoderate results. With tensions simmering successful Jiribam, constabulary successful neighbouring Cachar are connected precocious alert, conducting ft patrolling, country domination and searches on the Assam-Manipur borderline and riverine patrols on the Barak River.