NALBARI, Dec 19 ? Following the Bhutan Government?s crack down on the ULFA camps in the Himalayan Kingdom, anxious families of the about 200 ULFA members of Nalbari district are spending sleepless nights for the past five days. All these ULFA members are now holed up in the Bhutan camps of the outlawed militant organisation. The outfit has the highest number of cadres recruited from Nalbari district. The members of these ULFA cadres? families in different parts of the district are now anxiously waiting for the safe return of their estranged boys and girls, who have joined the outfit in the face of various problems and urges.
Many of the high portfolios of the outfit are now held by the district?s youths. The outfits publicity secretary Mithinga Daimary ( Dipak Das), its deputy commander-in-chief Raju Barua (Hitesh Kalita), its foreign secretary Sasha Choudhury?s names can be mentioned in this connection. However, Raju Barua and Sasha Choudhury are reportedly not in Bhutan now. But, in the meantime, some of the district?s top leaders of the outfit like Biju Deka, Anjan Kalita, Abhijit Rabha, Sarat Sarania, Rubul Ali, Hira Sarania, Govinda Bhuyan and Pankaj Barman are reportedly camping in Bhutan.
When met at her Chariya village residence today, nonagenaraian Smt Sajjya Bala Kalita, mother of Raju Barua, said, ?after the attack on the ULFA camps by the Royal Bhutan Army I have become very anxious to see my son?. She has been urging upon the ULFA to resume talks with the Government for quite a long time, but in vain. The family members of another top leader of the outfit Nilu Chakravorty, alias Abani Sarma or Jhon of Madhupur village, have also been tense. The family received an information, a few days back, that Nilu Chakravorty was in Bhutan and there he had tied the nuptial knot with Kabita Roy alias Himashree Barman of Paikarkuchi village. Kabita is also a cadre of the militant organisation. The couple had one son too.
Nilu?s mother Giribala Devi has been lighting an earthen lamp every day for the well being of her son, while her ailing septuagenarian husband Govinda Sarma told this correspondent that although they had received news of the arrest of their son they were not in a position to confirm it. The family contacted the Army authorities at Nalbari yesterday but there was no confirmation of the news. Sri Sarma urged upon the ULFA leaders to immediately surrender to the authorities and initiate the process of negotiation for the sake of saving the lives of the low rung cadres, who are facing the brunt of the Royal Bhutan Army?s operation flush out against the NE militant outfits in Bhutan.
Smt Hema Bala Baishya (75), the mother of another ULFA leader Simanta Saud, alias Thaneswar Baishya of Morowa, who is reportedly in any of the outfit?s Bhutan camps now, is also facing tremendous mental agony concerning the fate of her son. ?Now I have no alternative, but to pray to God for the survival of my son?, said the lady in a choked voice. She had brought up Simanta daring all the hardships of life after the premature death of her husband.
The families of Raju Barua, Nilu Chakravorty and Simanta Saud are not the only families in the district, which are now driven to indescribable mental agony, there are more than two hundred such families in the district. Talking to this correspondent, Additional Superintendent of Police, Nalbari,Jitmol Doley said that the police had a list of about two hundred ULFA members, belonging to the district, who had been camping in Bhutan.
Besides, fifty more militants of the outfit hailing from places of the district, are supposed to be in the Bhutan camps of the outfit these days. But the police have no concrete information of their stay in Bhutan, Sri Doley said. He also said that none of the families of the ULFA leaders and cadres from the district had so far contacted the police to know about the where about of their sons and daughters.