The tales of her suffering started not long after the death of her college lecturer husband Md Azad Khan (43) along with three others in an alleged fake encounter in March 2009. Security forces charged Md Azad of being a leader of an armed group namely the People’s United Liberation Front (Azad group). “He was an innocent man. He went for a meeting,” the widow claimed. “But he was found killed on false charges.”Presently Mumtaz is staying along with two of her five children at Phoudel Mamang Leikai village in Manipur’s Thoubal district while the other three are with her in - laws.

Like Mumtaz, many victims of the ongoing armed conflict in Manipur have their own untold stories. That is how the founder and Secretary General of Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network (MWGSN) Binalakshmi Nepram observed that Manipur will be called a land of widows if the armed conflict does not stop.

Binalakshmi, speaking at the global week of action on gun violence observation in Imphal on the 17th of June as part of 10 years United Nation Program on small arms and Manipuri women leading humanitarian disarmament efforts, said that more than 20,000 people have been killed in the last five decades in Manipur due to arms related conflicts and she pointed out that according to official statistics, in 2008 alone more than 400 people lost their lives due to such incidents.

Binalakshmi who founded MWGSN after witnessing the aftermath of the killing of 27 year old mechanic Buddhi Moirangthem in Wabgai Lamkhai village which lies southeast of Imphal on Christmas Eve in 2004 said that most of the people killed in Manipur are young men between 19 and 42 years of age and as a result, an average of 300 women are made widows every year in Manipur.

In 2009, over 450 people were shot dead in the state, outdoing Jammu & Kashmir as the state with the highest number of killings due to arm conflict, she said, adding that the state is also infamous for registering the highest number of disappearance cases of students in the country.

Not a day passes without armed violence and gun related killings in Manipur. Besides this, more than 30 armed groups, more than 40 battalions of the Indian army and several units of paramilitary forces are stationed throughout the state, she added.

Besides Mumtaz, some of the women gun survivors including Irom Ongbi Chitra, mother of teenager Irom Rozer who was a gun violence victim in which Manipur Irrigation and Flood Control department Minister N Biren’s son Ajay was allegedly an accused, have shared their feelings during the June 17 observation in Imphal.

Former Chairperson of Manipur Women’s Commission Dr Ch Jamini, Director of Human Rights Law Network Manipur unit Rakesh Meihoubam and N Nonibala, an NGO activist also spoke on the occasion wherein MWGSN which attempts to lift women above the trauma and agony faced in armed conflict by helping them to find ways to heal the scars that decades of violence have caused to the community, decided to urge the State and Union governments besides International communities to stop proliferation of guns and check gun violence in the region.

MWGSN’s declaration also appealed for a stop in the wanton killing and removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958 from the state besides urging the concerned authorities to provide monetary assistance to the victims of gun violence.

Sobhapati Samom