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"'He Pa! He Pa!' (Father!), but I did not hear him call me a third time. My wife, who is a Meitei, cried out in Meitei dialect, 'Dada angang yadare' ('Hubby, our child is gone')," said an inconsolable Joshua Hangsing, breaking down as he tried to narrate his ordeal.
On 4 June, a seven-year-old boy named Tonsing Hangsing, son to a Kuki father and a Meitei mother, who was injured by a bullet, was burnt alive in Imphal, Manipur.
The deceased were identified as Tonsing (7), his mother Meena Hangsing (45), who was a Meitei Christian married to a Kuki (Joshua Hangsing), and their relative Lydia Lourembam (37), also a Meitei Christian.
The Quint visited Joshua Hangsing, Tonsing's father and Meena's husband, in Guwahati, Assam. Here is what he had to say.
'Since My Wife is Meitei ...'
"When I heard about my wife’s and my (younger) son’s death, I did not want to inform my two other children. But they somehow got the information. The very moment they heard the news, they burst out crying till they turned unconscious," Hangsing, barely able to speak, narrated to The Quint.
He went on to say that nobody inform him about their death when it actually happened.
"They died around 7 pm on the 4 June but nothing was told to me on 5 June, and I only got the news of their death on the 6 June. I was informed by my father-in-law who got the information from local news because my wife’s family belongs to the Meitei community. The moment we got the news, all of us could do nothing but cry and mourn over their death."
Hangsing also said that it's likely that his son was shot by a sniper.
"They (his wife and son) were there inside the room at the 22 Assam Rifle water supply ‘Dolan’. I was coming from the ground floor fetching water when I saw my son jumping around the window two times."
Unable to hold back his tears anymore, Hangsing recounts how his screamed out, "He Pa! He Pa!” (Father!)."
"But I did not hear him call me a third time. My wife who is Meitei cry out in the Meitei dialect saying 'Dada angang yadare' (Hubby our child is gone).
Hangsing further explained that they took their child to the Army MI (medical inspection) room. Since the bullet had hit his son’s head, it was bleeding heavily. They figured that the people over there would not be able to save him.
"Since my wife is Meitei, her friend Lydia, who’s husband I know is Meitei as well, I thought nothing would happen to them. But it did not turn out as I had hoped."
'My Son is a Nephew to the Meiteis'
"The Meitei mobs did not spare them. Despite them being Meitei, my son, only 7 years old, was not spared. This is the first time I am seeing such level of inhumanity."
The incident has become unbearable for Hangsing. It hurts and angers him, he said, that no one came to help when his family was attacked.
"Since we were in an army camp, she thought that we can take a risk by taking an ambulance to go to Imphal. Three commando gypsies were called to escort the ambulance, but the army did not go along with them."
"Because my wife and her friend were Meitei, I did not expect them (Meiteis) to do something like this to them. I did not expect the Meiteis to act in such a manner. The place where we are staying, there are about 4-5 Meitei houses but we did not do anything to them. I thought my wife and son would be treated in the same way, but after what has happened I have now come to understand how the Meiteis think. My son is a nephew to the Meiteis."Joshua Hangsing, father of Tonsing Hangsing
Hangsing concludes the interview with an appeal to the Meitei community.
"I request my Meitei brethren to do away with this hateful thinking, and we will also not hold a grudge. This is the worst, the highest crime that can be thought of. I humbly beg you to do away with this sort of thinking. This is my humble request."
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