Now the relatives are saying the same things that some of us have been saying all along. Some may say these relatives are being paid to create this scene. Is there any reason to believe that? What's your take on this?
ULFA kin want end to insurgency
By A Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, Nov 25 — Urmila Deka of Nalbari has tears streaming down her cheeks as she relives the seven years she has lived without even once hearing from her son. That many years ago, her son, then a student and part businessman, suddenly vanished. Today, Urmila does not even know whether her son in alive or not. Over the years, the fifty-plus woman has been called to identify several dead bodies. Anyone of them could have been that of her son. Luckily, the mother did not have to carry home the burden of a dead son. Today, her only wish is that her son should return to her.
Urmila Deka is the mother of top ULFA leader Punakan Deka. “He never informed us before leaving,” says Urmila. Punakan’s father, about 70 now, has had his eyes operated recently. “If he is alive, he should come back to his old parents,” the mother cries. Till he left to join the underground outfit, Urmila never knew what the ULFA was. Today, she is sure it is something that has only brought misery. Apart from the pain of a missing son, Urmila and the rest of her family had to face harassment from the security forces too. Punakan’s elder brother is in the public health office while his younger brother is in the state tea protection force.
Urmila, along with the relatives of several other UFLA leaders and other cadres staged a day-long hunger strike at the Dispur last gate here today demanding a peaceful solution to the ULFA problem. “Should Assam go the Kashmir way?”, “if LTTE and NSCN can come for talks why not the ULFA and NDFB?” and “why is Mitinga Daimary silent on the ULFA families?” were some of the banners that were put up to drive home the message to all concerned.
“The government, intellectuals and the public should join hands to pressure the militants to come for talks,” says Nipen Das of Barpeta. In 1997, his son, Jitu Das left home to join the ultras. “I tried to locate him several times but was never successful,” he says. When Jitu was about a year old, Nipen Das had “donated” him to neighbour Ramesh Das. Jitu grew up in Ramesh’s home. Today, Ramesh is dead but his wife is alive. Both the households eagerly await the day when Jitu would return home.
“I dislike the ULFA ideology,” says Nipen Das. Even if the ULFA men have some demand, they should try to get it fulfilled in a peaceful manner, he feels. “And why should some young men decide the future of Assam, let everybody decide,” says Nipen. He is sure none of the ULFA cadres has joined the outfit with their parents’ permission. “They say they are fighting for their motherland, but why are they not caring for the mothers who gave them birth?” asks Nipen Das. For his, every death is painful, whether the victim is an ultra or a jawan. “I do not want the death of people, I want the death of insurgency,” he says.
Top ULFA leader Prabin Konwar alias Ramu Mech is now in jail. But when his mother died last month, she departed without seeing her son for the last 20 years. Ramu Mech is among the senior leaders of the ULFA. His father is over 80 today. “We went through a lot of tension as well as harassment from the security forces,” says elder brother Pulin Konwar who is an ASEB employee in Nazira. “But we are happy that he is in custody because we know at least he is safe there,” says Pulin. The past two decades has seen Ramu Mech’s family members being taken to the police stations and Army camps on several occasions. Torture was automatic.
“Violence can never help in solving anything. I want talks to start,” says Pulin. For him a start can be made regardless of the outcome. The hunger strike today saw the families of several other militants come out against violence. ULFA ‘chairman’ Arabinda Rajkhowa’s nonagenerian mother was on her way to join the protest when a fall forced her to stay back. The message she sent to her son through the Assam Public Works ULFA Pariyal Committee, the organisers of the event, was to see his parents who are at the fag end of their lives.
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