The video is 32 seconds long. A man lies on the ground in Churachandpur, Manipur. Gunshots. He stops moving. The video ends.
That man was a Meitei married to a Kuki-Zo woman. In the ethnic violence tearing Manipur apart for the past 20 months, that made him a target.
A billion people aren't a statistic - they're a billion stories. This is the story of how loving across ethnic lines can get you killed in India's northeast, and how the violence continues while the rest of the country looks away.
The killing
The victim, whose identity has been withheld pending family notification, was shot dead in Churachandpur district in an area controlled by Kuki-Zo armed groups. According to the Indian Express, the video circulating on social media shows the moment of his death - and contains what witnesses describe as a "chilling message" about the fate of interfaith couples.
He was a Meitei man from the valley, Manipur's Meitei-majority lowlands. He had married a Kuki-Zo woman from the hills. In normal times, this would be unremarkable - communities in Manipur have intermarried for generations.
These are not normal times.
Since May 2023, Manipur has been gripped by ethnic violence between the Meitei majority and Kuki-Zo tribal groups. More than 250 people have been killed. Tens of thousands have been displaced. The state has effectively split into ethnic enclaves, with armed groups controlling territory and paramilitaries unable or unwilling to stop them.
And increasingly, interfaith couples - people whose marriages cross ethnic lines - are being targeted.
The pattern
This is not the first such killing. In recent months, multiple cases have emerged of people in mixed marriages being attacked, threatened, or forced to flee their homes. The message from extremists on both sides is clear: you're either with your ethnic group, or you're a traitor.
For the thousands of interfaith families in Manipur, this is terrifying. Many have fled to Imphal, the state capital, or to other states entirely. Others are trapped in their homes, afraid to go out, afraid their neighbors will turn on them.
A Kuki woman married to a Meitei man, speaking on condition of anonymity from a relief camp in Imphal, described the fear: "We're nobody's people now. The Meiteis say I'm Kuki. The Kukis say I'm with the enemy. Our children don't understand why they have to hide who they are."
That's what ethnic violence does - it doesn't just kill people in the moment. It kills the idea that people from different communities can live together, love each other, raise families. It says that identity is destiny, and mixed identity is betrayal.
The government's failure
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government has largely ignored Manipur's crisis. Modi himself said nothing publicly about the violence for more than two months after it began. When he finally spoke, it was only after a video of two women being paraded naked went viral.
Now another video has emerged - a murder caught on camera - and the response from New Delhi is the same: silence.
Manipur has a population of 3.2 million people. That's more than Slovenia, more than Mongolia. If this level of ethnic violence were happening in a European country, it would dominate international headlines. But because it's in India's remote northeast, it barely registers.
The state government, led by Chief Minister N. Biren Singh, has lost control of large parts of Manipur. Armed groups operate freely. Ethnic militias set up checkpoints. Normal policing has broken down. The central government sent in additional paramilitary forces, but they've largely stayed in their camps, unwilling to confront the armed groups.
Meanwhile, people keep dying.
What comes next
The killing of this interfaith couple member is not just a crime - it's a message. It says: you cannot bridge the divide. You cannot belong to both communities. You must choose, and if you choose wrong, you die.
This is how ethnic cleansing works - not always through mass killings, but through making it impossible for people to stay in mixed communities. Through fear. Through targeted violence. Through forcing people to choose between their identity and their safety.
For Manipur's interfaith families - the couples who married across ethnic lines, the children of mixed heritage, the people who represent what the state could be instead of what it has become - the message is clear: you're not safe here anymore.
A billion people aren't a statistic. In Manipur, 3.2 million people are watching their state tear itself apart along ethnic lines while their government does nothing. And the people who dared to love across those lines are paying with their lives.
The video is 32 seconds long. But the consequences will last for generations.
