Gunning down of school girl in Assam: Troubling questions for Tarun Gogoi

By Nandita Sengupta

Guwahati: Days after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi claimed that his government’s policies have led to an improvement in the security scenario of the state, a Class X girl was gunned down by militants in front of her parents and her neighbours in Dwimuguri village in Chirang district. The militants did not stop there. At least 10 militants wielding sophisticated weapons announced in front of television cameras that they had executed the school girl Priya Basumatary as she was a police informer.

The brutal killing of Priya in broad daylight and the threat on television that they would resort to similar acts has not just shocked Assam but has also questioned the state government’s strategy in controlling militancy, a problem that has survived three decades.

“The way Priya was killed and militants dared to announce it on television cameras was perhaps the most brutal act by militants in the long militancy problem in our state,” said a member of the Forum for Terrorist Victims’ Family - Assam. “We have seen our near and dear ones including children dying in bomb blasts and firing in the past but the way they announced Priya’s killing on television channels proves that militants still rule the roost in some parts of the state and they could do whatever they wanted to. We completely blame our government as they invited militant groups for talks, welcomed them and released many of their leaders from jails for the so-called peace talks. While some are still moving freely, many of their colleagues are carrying out extortion, abduction and the killing the way the Songbijit faction of National Democratic Font of Bodoland (NDFB-S) is doing at present. How can we welcome one faction for talks while the other was still carrying out their violence?” added the member of the group that is an umbrella organisation of families who have lost loved ones to militant attacks in Assam.

The militancy problem in Assam, from the later part of the 1980s, has not only killed hundreds, paralysed many but united over 5,000 families of victims to unite and fight for justice. Leaders of Ulfa, NDFB and Dima Halam Daogah were released from jails after both, the Centre and Assam governments, gave no-objection certificates in courts to release them for peace talks.

Priya, the 16-year-old second daughter of Niren Basumatary, a poor farmer at Dwimuguri village in Chirang district close to the India-Bhutan border in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD), was dragged out by armed members of NDFB (S) around 4 pm on August 20 and was shot at from close range. She died on the spot. Local police, who were allegedly too afraid to enter the remote village to recover Priya’s body for the next two days, said that the militants had assaulted her parents and had asked neighbours to gather before she was gunned down. The militant group, led by its deputy army chief B Bidai, posed in front of TV cameras. The leader then fired his weapon to announce that they had executed Priya as she had passed on information to security forces about the presence of five NDFB (S) cadres in the village. “She had passed on the information through the boy she loved, who is a member of the Ranjan Daimary group (another group of NDFB) and they (security forces) killed five of our members. So we had to kill her. If our members are killed like this, we will have to do the same,” Bidai said to satellite television channels.

The Ranjan Daimary group, which is in talks with the government, however, denied their claim the next day. The BTAD, comprising four districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa and Udalguri, was set up in 2003 under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution following long armed violence. The Bodoland Territorial Council that was constituted is now headed by Hagrama Mohilary, a former member of Bodo Liberation Tigers, a now disbanded militant group.

What followed Priya’s killing was shock across Assam and widespread condemnation not only of the brutal act but also of the state government’s policy. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, facing much criticism, was quick to announce that the state government would institute a bravery award in recognition of her “exemplary courage” against militants. Gogoi’s announcement left many more shocked and angry.

“Does not this certify that she was used as an informer by our security forces to fight militants? If that is the case, then our government and the security forces have committed an illegal act by engaging a child in their fight against militancy,” president of the influential All Bodo Students’ Union (ABSU), Promod Boro, said in a press conference soon after the incident.

The student body moved the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights seeking inquiry into the use of the child and seek the commission’s intervention to ensure protection of children in conflict situations. The students of Runikhata Bodo Girls’ High School at Dwimuguri, where Priya studied, also staged a protest on August 25 against the killing of the class X student.

The criticism over the bravery award,however, prompted Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to clarify that Priya was not a police informer as claimed by the militant group, which killed her. The state government on August 26 also ordered for a judicial inquiry into the incident.

The protest over the shocking incident may have subsided, but many including the opposition parties have alleged that the state government’s policy to hold discussions with different factions of the same militant group was keeping many parts of the state such as BTAD volatile. “The killing of the innocent girl once again brought to light the ineffectiveness of our administration and the state government’s failure to deal with militants,” a statement issued by the Opposition Asom Gana Parishad on August 23 said.

The NDFB (S) led by I K Songbijit, a breakaway faction of Ranjan Daimary group of NDFB, is carrying out extortion in BTAD and its neighbouring districts, keeping the security forces on their toes. They even recently killed a young additional superintendent of police, Gulzar Hussain, during an operation in Sonitpur district, bordering Arunachal Pradesh. The NDFB at present is divided into three groups of which two including the one led by Ranjan Daimary is in talks with the government while the NDFB (S) is continuing violence.