TAMULPUR, Dec 24 ? Ending the week-long speculation, the Royal Government of Bhutan today handed over 64 kin of the ULFA militants at Samdrup Jongkhar to the Nalbari district administration. Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Samdrup Jongkhar formally handed over the militants? kin to the DC of Nalbari at the Samdrup Jongkhar High School this morning.
The kin were later taken to the Tampulpur 30-bedded Hospital campus by the Nalbari district administration by two buses. The kin included 37 women and 27 children .Five of the women were unmarried.The women included the wife of Ashanta Bagh Phukan ,Hangshipa Hazarika, who is also a member of the ULFA armed wing. She has been handed over with her five-year old son Kareng. The women also included Asomi Devi, a lieutenant of the ULFA and her three-year old daughter Venus Goswami is one of the 27 children who reached Tamulpur today.
One eight-month old boy Anurag Patgiri, whose mother was killed in the Bhutan Royal Army?s operation against the militants in Bhutan, and the injured two-year old boy Shyamal, who received bullet injury in his right leg, were also there among the children. Most of the women hailed from the upper Assam districts, while only Asomi Devi, Luku Deka and Geetanjali Chakravorty belonged to Nalbari district.
After their arrival at Tamulpur, they were checked by two physicians Kailash Deka and Gokul Patowary. According to the physicians, two of the children were found to be suffering from diarrhoea, while one of women was found to be suffering from hypertension and another pregnant.
However, media persons were not allowed to talk to the kin of the militants.