Imphal, June 16: The only moments when married women and their children regale themselves enjoying the bliss of existence, it is said, is while they are under the protective care of their husbands and fathers.

But in Manipur, many women and children are living under the gloomy shadow of exigencies of life encountering numerous difficulties each passing day after their beloved husbands or fathers fell victims of the prevailing culture of gun-violence.

The Global Week of Action Against Gun Culture is currently being observed the world over since June 11 and it would be concluded tomorrow.

In the backdrop of this world-wide campaign, it would be pertinent to understand the ordeals that some of the women and children have been going through after their husbands or the fathers have fallen victims of senseless, yet ceaseless gunviolence in this tiny hill-locked State.

Renu Takhellambam is only a 26 years old young widow who recently lost her husband to the gun-violence.

She has a child of one year and 2 months old.

Her husband, Thangkhumu Paite, who was more popularly known among his friends and relatives as just 'Mu' was shot dead by the State security forces during an incident on April 6 this year.

Mu was just 33 years old then.

After giving up his job as a counsellor in Social Awareness Service Organisation (SASO), an NGO, Mu was running a shop of his own when he was killed.

On receiving the news of death of her husband, who liked to play with his child all the time and dreamed of seeing him as an ace footballer when grown up, Renu behaved like a mad woman.

She did not cry and her whole body shook.

She could never believed that the body of her husband was lying cold in the mortuary.

It was four days that she gathered up the courage to look at the face of her beloved husband for the last time.

Since that tragic incident, Renu has been trying to piece together her shattered world listening to the religious teaching on the transient nature of human life.

Looking older than her actual today, Renu said 'I may be able to overcome tragedy of the loss of my husband and the mental trauma that I have been suffering by following the religious teachings.

But what about the loss that would be felt by my son all his life.

He would never feel the carrying and loving presence of his father'.

'Human life is priceless.

So just killing a person without a finding out whether he is guilty or not is really unfortunate.

It was not fate that my husband passed away prematurely.

He became a victim of trigger happy security personnel who do not know where and how to use the weapon allotted to them properly'.

After the death of her husband, many people came to Renu with various advice which she had never heard of while her husband was alive.

Some of them insisted that she should marry again and find a new husband to carry on with her remaining life while some told her not to think of anything else but the welfare of her only son.

She had also never known the financial burden of the running the family while Mu was alive.

But after his death it was a constant fight for survival.

In order to sustain the family, Renu , who had passed class XII and undergone a training course for hair and skin care from IIT is today running a beauty parlour. On the other hand, 35-year old Jamuna is the widow of Ngangom Amuyai, who was a driver in the Ist IRB.

They already have two children, one daughter who is 12 years old and studying in class V and a son who is 7 years of age.

Soon after their marriage in 1994, Amuyai joined Ist IRB as a driver.

As he was the only earning member of the family, his old mother, wife and two children depended on him for everything.

Amuyai was also a responsible family man who took proper care of all the needs of the family and nurtured big dreams for his children.

But the world came down crashing for the family after Amuyai was killed in the ambush laid by unidentified persons on a team of security personnel while returning from Khoupum in Tamenglong district after election duty of the 9th Manipur Legislative Assembly on February 24 this year.

At the time of her husband's death, Jamuna was already pregnant with three months.

With tears in eyes, Jamuna said ' It is for sure that all of us would die one day.

But to shoot and kill a person simply is condemnable.

Such killings should never take place.

That fatal ambush has snatched away the hopes and aspirations of my family'.

Now in advanced stage of pregnancy with her third child who would never know the paternal love in life, Jamuna said resolutely, 'inspite of the woes befallen in my family, I wished to bring up my children and give them proper education'.

But she studied till class X only and never had the chance of undergoing some vocational training that might help in earning a decent income and her struggle for survival continues.

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