GUWAHATI, Feb 3 ? For close to six weeks, Dr P Bezbaruah, the District Medical Health Officer in Meghalaya?s East Garo Hills district, was kept moving around the deep jungles in the Garo Hills after being kidnapped by the militant Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC) on the fateful evening of December 19. Today, after being released by the Garo militant group on January 29, he is back among family and friends. Though his over 40-day agony has, fortunately, not left much of a physical scar, it has left him mentally strained.
Dr Bezbaruah, originally from Sivasagar, came to his Guwahati home last Friday to rest and undergo a thorough medical check-up. ?I am mentally still troubled,? he told The Assam Tribune here this afternoon. ?Sometimes, during sleep, I still feel as if I am sleeping in a camp,? he added. Dr Bezbaruah?s travails began on the evening of December 19 when he was on his way back from work at Williamnagar, the district headquarters. Some youths in a car, at least one of them brandishing a revolver, waylaid the doctor?s car and told him to accompany them. He silently did as instructed and rode the militant?s car for some distance. The ultras had already declared that they were ANVC cadres, Dr Bezbaruah said.
After abandoning the car, the group then crossed a river and started their walk into the forests. The first night, the group walked for close to two hours and rested in a makeshift camp. From then on it was an exercise in changing locations from time to time. Dr Bezbaruah also spent a night in a village once. By then, the number of ultras accompanying him had increased to almost a dozen. According to Dr Bezbaruah, the ANVC ultras were quite courteous with him, calling him uncle or ?achu? (Garo for elder brother). ?I told them right in the beginning that I don?t eat meat,? he recalled. Though fish was served once in a while, the staple was boiled vegetables. Of course, the doctor was also provided with apples, grapes, cherry and even horlicks. The militants gave him ?Moov? too to help him in reliving his spondylitis problem.
The ultras never told Dr Bezbaruah exactly what they wanted. They only said that they wanted better health facilities in the Garo Hills. There was not much communication between the ultras and the hostage since just two of them knew Hindi. The doctor spent his time reading and thinking about family and friends. ?They offered to play chess with me but I declined as I was not in the right frame of mind,? he said. Dr Bezbaruah never lost hope during his captivity. If anything troubled him it was the cold and the fear of wild animals. ?It was very cold and they provided me with extra blankets,? Dr Bezbaruah said about his stay in the forests where, sometimes, it would get dark as early as 3 pm. Added to that were the elephants and tigers that prowled the jungles. ?They killed a leopard in the kitchen just ten days back,? he recalled.
On January 28, the militants offered to release Dr Bezbaruah in the evening. He declined since it was getting dark. The next morning, the militants walked him to the outskirts of Williamnagar and turned back. Dr Bezbaruah reached home at 12.45 pm to his waiting family and relatives who were camping there for weeks. His first act was to call up his 88 year old mother in Sivasagar to inform her of his release. ?She wept,? he said. The doctor is the youngest son in his family. It was only on the next day that hundreds of people poured in to meet Dr Bezbaruah. They included the district police and civil officials, Ministers, colleagues and well-wishers. ?I am grateful to all my friends, relatives, the media and the Meghalaya Medical Service Association (MMSA), ?Dr Bezbaruah said. The doctor has served in the Garo Hills for long years, sometimes walking miles to visit patients. The kidnapping was the least that he expected.
Dr Bezbaurah is still undecided about whether he would go back to Williamnagar again. ?I have to go but I have not made up my mind,? he said. The doctor is retiring next June. For the moment, however, he will rest in Guwahati and then travel to Sivasagar to meet his mother. Right now, his wife and eldest daughter are with him. His younger daughter, studying in Bangalore, is still in the dark about what had happened to her father. ?She does not know anything yet,? Dr Bezbaruah said with a smile.