The yu, a popular rice wine, has not been brewing at Sekmai, dry Manipur’s favourite watering hole north of the State’s capital Imphal on National Highway 2.
What’s been brewing for more than a month is the fear of getting killed at the Sekmai relief camp and the realisation that members of 175 Meitei households, spread across several such camps, may never return to their ancestral homes in Kangpokpi, a Kuki-dominated district. The Sekmai camp is on the northern edge of the Imphal Valley, just a few metres from the boundary between Kangpokpi and the Meitei-heavy Imphal East district.
Their fear grew stronger on May 27 after scores of gunmen swooped down on a village just 600 metres east of the Sekmai relief camp, where Herojit Chilen and Nongthombam Sandhyarani have found refuge.
