Christian presumed dead in Manipur emerges from morgue, says he forgives Hindu attackers

Originally published in Premier Christian News

A man believed by his attackers to have been ‘killed’ in India’s troubled Manipur state has emerged from a hospital morgue and says he forgives his Meitei Hindu attackers.

Thangboi Singsit, 25, is a tribal Christian from Kangchup Geljang village in Kangpokpi district in the northeast of India.  He shared his testimony of survival during a prayer and fasting meeting convened by the Tribal Churches Leaders’ Fellowship earlier this week, at the Kangpokpi Christian Church.

Convenor of the Fellowship, Pastor ‘Mang’ (not his real name) told Premier that after ‘coming back to life’ in the morgue, Singsit ‘felt like taking revenge’ against his attackers, but told the prayer meeting ‘he was convinced to forgive them and leave the rest in God’s hands’.

After being badly beaten to the point of apparent death, Thangboi Singsit told the meeting he ‘might not be in a position to do hard work’ in the future, as his ‘body can’t take it’. But his message to others was ‘to live in peace and stop the violence’.

Communal attacks driven by ethnic differences commenced on 3rd May in Manipur, with radicalised Meitei groups, who are mainly Hindu, attacking Meitei Christian targets and tribal Kuki-Zo Christian villages in the hills. Meiteis claim there have been Kuki reprisals.

An estimated 100 people have been killed and as many as 500 Meitei and Kuki churches, seminaries and Christian schools burned down in what Christians say is a premeditated and orchestrated campaign of violence.

According to a social media post by the Tribal Churches Leaders’ Fellowship 6000 Christians turned up to pray – six times more than anticipated, with similar prayer and fasting meetings happening across Manipur.

Premier cannot independently verify the details, but Pastor Mang told Premier Christian News that the attack on Thangboi Singsit had been planned while he was working at a Service Centre at Nambol Town near the state capital, Imphal.

Mang said “At around 9pm, he and two Kuki boys at the service centre went to have their dinner. It was at that point, some Meiteis came and took them away… and attacked them”.

According to Mang, they were attacked with iron bars until believed to be dead. But it turned out later, Thangboi was merely unconscious.  “The police took him along with the other dead bodies to the morgue at the main hospital in Imphal”, Mang said, but before sending his body to the morgue, the doctor in charge found a faint pulse in Thangboi’s pulse hand.

“He kept him in the intensive care unit, and he came back to life/consciousness after three days”, he described.  After two weeks, he was taken by the Indian army to Churachandpur.

Mang says that Christians in the state have organised state-wide prayer meetings on the 3rd of every month until the violence, which Mang calls “the genocide” stops.

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