# Borobekra

Borobekra, also spelt Barabekra, is a village in the Jiribam district in Manipur, India, and the headquarters of an eponymous subdivision. It is about 30 km south of Jiribam, the headquarters of the district. The village is on the bank of the Barak River, near the confluence of a tributary that flows down from the Vangaitang range to the east. The Barak River flows north in this region, up to Jirimukh, where it turns northwest. The Barak River also forms the border with the Assam state of India.
The villages surrounding Borobekra include Guakhal, Harinagar and Jakuradhor. All of them are broadly considered as part of the Borobekra region. The Borobekra Police Station is at Jukuradhor. The north–south-running Jiribam–Tipaimukh highway passes through the Guakhal village, close to Borobekra, and continues on to Harinagar and Jakuradhor.

## Geography and History

The entire Vangaitang range adjacent to the present-day Jiribam district was part of the Cachar kingdom at the beginning of the 19th century. After annexing the kingdom in 1832, the British transferred the Vangaitang range to Manipur, setting the border along the western stretch of Barak River and the Jiri River. In 1907, the Manipur government opened the "Jiribam valley" between the rivers and the Vangaitang range for agricultural settlement, and, by 1911, 14,346 bighas of land is said to have been settled. Most of the settlers in Jiribam came from Cachar, very few from the Imphal Valley (Manipur valley). They included Bengalis as well as Meiteis. Rice and sugarcane were cultivated, and betel leaf (pan) in areas unsuitable for rice cultivation.
The Vangaitang range itself is the traditional abode of the Hmar tribes (part of the Kuki-Zo conglomeration). The Hmars live in small settlements at the foothills and at the edges of forest areas.

### Independent India

Borobekra and all the surrounding villages (Guakhal, Harinagar and Jakuradhor) were already settled prior to India's independence. Borobekra was a market town that ran a Friday market which was the main market for the people on Barak River, as far way as Pherzawl.
Initially, Jiribam subdivision was formed to encompass the Vangaitang range from the Jiri River in the north and Tipaimukh in the south. In due course, the southern and eastern hill regions were transferred to the Churachandpur district (now Pherzawl district), leaving only the valley and some of the foothills regions in the Jiribam subdivision. The foothill villages to the east of Borobekra, such as Phailian, Tuisen and Buangmun, are administratively in Pherzawl district.
The Jiribam subdivision was divided into two revenue circles: the Jiri Circle in the north, and Barak Circle in the south. The Barak Circle was headquartered at Borobekra.
In December 2016, the Jiribam subdivision was made an independent district. The two revenue circles were upgraded to Jiribam subdivision and Borobekra subdivision respectively.
A police station for the Jiribam region was approved in 2011, and was eventually inaugurated in 2016. It is in the Jakuradhor village, within a compound that also contains a camp of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). There is also an Assam Rifles camp at Guakhal.

### Insurgencies

According to multiple sources, the proscribed Meitei insurgent groups, United National Liberation Front (UNLF) and People's Liberation Army of Manipur (PLA), used the Jiribam valley and the neighbouring Cachar district of Assam as their main area of operations. The region was originally used by Meitei insurgent groups in the 1960s as a launching pad to access the training camps run by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh). With the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, this activity was briefly halted, but it resumed in 1975 with the advent of military rule in Bangladesh.
Security expert E. M. Rammohan states that the hilly region bounded by NH-37 in the north, Thangjing Hills in the east, Tipaimukh Road in the south, and the Jiribam–Tipaimukh Road on the west, was a "free zone", with minimal presence of security forces, which was adopted by UNLF, PLA and Hmar People's Convention–Democracy for setting up camps and bases. The PLA and UNLF are said to have entered this area after the Kuki-Naga conflict (in the 1990s) by helping resettle the displaced Kukis in Churachandpur district and obtaining land in return. Rammohan also states that HPC-Democracy was allied with UNLF.
In the 1990s, UNLF is said to have forcibly driven out many Bengali residents of Borobekra, settling Meiteis in their place. The Bengalis that remained were subject to violence and extortion.
The entente between UNLF and the Hmar community came to an end in 2006 after the mass rape of 21 women and girls allegedly carried out by the UNLF and the allied group Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP) in the neighbouring Tipaimukh subdivision. Afterwards, the insurgent groups were forced to leave the area. The local people credited the 7th India Reserve Battalion (IRB) forces stationed at Jakuradhor, and the 37th battalion of Assam Rifles stationed at Guakhal, for re-establishing peace in the region.

## Demography

The Borobekra census village has a population of 741 people as per the 2011 census, of which 27% is made of Scheduled Tribes (Kuki-Zo people). The other major communities in the region are Bengalis and Meiteis. Bishnupriya Manipuris are also known to live in Borobekra.
The villages Guakhal (population: 824), Harinagar (population: 421), and Jakuradhor–Part 1 (population: 1486) have only small fractions of Scheduled Tribe populations. But Jakuradhor–Part 2 (population: 1171) has 18 percent Scheduled Tribes.

## 2023–2024 Manipur violence

When the ethnic conflict in Manipur erupted between the Meiteis and Kuki-Zo people on 3 May 2023, the Jiribam district remained relatively at peace for almost a year. The peace was shattered by twin murders in May–June 2024, the first of a Kuki individual named Seigoulen Singson in May, and the second of a Meitei individual named Soibam Saratkumar Singh in June. Rumours spread that Saratkumar's body was founded beheaded, inflaming Meitei feelings. Meitei mobs led by Arambai Tenggol started torching houses in the Jiribam area, prompting the Hmars and Thadou Kukis to flee to relief camps in neighbouring Assam.
This invited retaliation by Hmars and Thadou Kukis in the Borobekra subdivision in the south. On 8 June, armed tribals (referred to as "suspected militants" in the media) set fire to a police outpost at Chotobekra and continued by torching several houses. The district authorities evacuated 239 Meitei people from their villages and to a shelter in the sports complex in Jiribam. Some Meiteis who felt vulnerable also took shelter in the Borobekra police station at Jakuradhor. They said that, soon after they left, their houses were torched.
On 1 August, the Jiribam district administration brokered a peace agreement between Meiteis and Hmars in order to facilitate the return of displaced residents. The agreement was disowned by Hmar Inpui. Nevertheless, on 7 August, the residents of the Mongbung Meitei village were escorted back to their homes. In early October, the Hmar villagers of Zairawn felt safe enough to return to their village.
The Zairawn village was attacked on 7 November, alleged by Arambai Tenggol militia joined by the Pambei faction of UNLF which had signed a peace agreement with the government the previous November. The villagers were chased out and some 17 houses were burnt down. A 31-year-old school teacher, a mother of three, was captured, brutally tortured, and burnt alive along with her house. The grisly killing of the woman sent shock waves through the Kuki-Zo community, and initiated a spiral of violence in various parts of th state resulting in at least 21 deaths. The worst of these incidents was near Borobekra.
On 11 November, roughly two dozen Hmar armed men arrived at a market area called Jakuradhor Karong on the Jiribam–Tipaimukh Road, perhaps some in shared auto rickshaws and others via the river. They asked the Meiteis to leave their properties and started burning them down. According to journalist Greeshma Kuthar, this was done in the presence of CRPF personnel, who had a camp adjacent to the police station a few hundred metres to the south. After fifteen minutes, the CRPF personnel asked the Hmar men to leave, and soon afterwards a CRPF bullet-proof vehicle that arrived on the scene opened fire, killing 10 Hmar men.
The Manipur Police however released a statement saying that the Hmar men attacked the police station cum CRPF camp further south, and that the deaths occurred under retaliatory fire by the CRPF. They said that one of the CRPF men was also injured and was being treated in a hospital.
The surviving Hmar men are believed to have abducted an elderly Meitei woman, along with her two daughters and three grandchildren. All six people were subsequently killed, whose bodies were found in the Jiri River and the Barak River a few days later, some showing marks of torture inflicted on them.
As of November 2024, the cases remain under investigation by the National Investigation Agency. The killing of women and children led to widespread protests by the Meitei population of the Imphal Valley, inviting curfews and Internet shutdowns. The central government has also declared six police station jurisdictions, including Jiribam, as "disturbed areas" under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, and sent 70 additional companies of central armed police forces to maintain law and order.