Dhubri, Jan 23 (IANS): Ten-year-old Raska Kisku, an inmate of a refugee camp in western Assam's, Dhubri district, say his entire family of six being hacked to death by Bodo rebels in December 1998.

"I am scared of people. Have you come to kill me? Kishku pleads with folded hands when a stranger approaches him. Kishku, who survived the massacre that took place in the State's Kokrajhar district by hiding inside a paddy sack, cries and faints often.

That is the plight of scores of children in Assam who have been traumatised and break into fits of insanity after having witnessed bloodletting in the course of insurgency. Psychologists say most children are finding it difficult to lead a normal life as they grow older.

"I have some child patients whose family members were killed in front of their eyes. They are extremely apprehensive, depressed, tearful, cannot adjust to the new situation easily as they have been uprooted from their homes and relatives, and there are some cases of mental breakdown as well," Deepali Dutta, a renowned psychiatrist in Guwahati, told India Abroad News Service.

An estimated 50,000 children in Assam are reported to be direct or indirect victims of insurgency or ethnic violence and some 1,000 children in the age group of 10 to 15 are believed to be living under stress and receiving psychiatric treatment.

"Even now we have some teenagers who had seen their family members being killed who keep on narrating the violent incidents they witnessed. Fear continues to haunt them and they cannot forget they gory sights," AU Choudhury, project director of SOS Villages in Assam, said. There are an estimated 500 orphans in Assam's SOS Villages who have lot their families to insurgency during the past few years.

"If we allow children to get exposed to violence, a time might come when we will have a new generation of youths filled with a sense of vengeance and anger and that will definitely have a devastating affect on society," Siba Prasad Sharma, Police Superintendent of the rebel-infested Dhubri district, told IANS.

Chief Minister, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta echoes Sharma's words. "If proper care and treatment is not given to the traumatised children, then a stage may come when most of them will grow up with an attitude filled with revenge and anger. If that happens, it could tear apart the social fabric of the state and for that we must all unite to fight back to stop all forms of violence," he told IANS.

Continuing insurgency in Assam during the past two decades has claimed an estimated 20,00 lives while hundreds of others have been maimed for life. Insurgency took root in the State some time in 1979, with the formation of the now banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). The ULFA has been fighting for an independent Assam outside the country's federation.

Thereafter, the tribal Bodos launched a movement for a separate tribal homeland of Bodoland within the Indian union. Two Bodo rebel outfits came into existence as a result, - the National Democratic Front of Bodoland and the Bodoland Tiger Force (BLT).

"The impact of any form of violence is not at all healthy for a child. I myself am a victim of one of the worst ever massacres in which my entire family was killed in 1983 at Nellie in Assam. I am lucky that the SOS Hojai Village adopted me and nurtured me well," Abdul High, now a lecturer at an engineering college in Bangalore, said.

High was referring to the 1983 incident when, in a single day, more than 500 children ranging in age from one month to 10 years were orphaned at Nellie in eastern Assam when more than 1,000 people were massacred. All the orphans were adopted by the SOS Hojai village in the Nagaon district of Assam and, fortunately, most of them have grown up to become responsible citizens today.

New Delhi, Jan 23 (UNI): Women in North-east India bear the double burden of being caught in the crossfire between insurgents and security forces besides suffering an acute sense of isolation, a regional workshop held by the National Commission for Women (NCW) has highlighted.

The North-east Regional Workshop, held in Agartala, Tripura, on January 18-19, was attended by representatives of State women's commissions of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam, besides 30 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from these States and Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur.

NCW chairperson Vibha Parthasarthi, member Syeda Hameed and member-secretary Binoo Sen also attended the workshop, which is the first of a pioneering series of regional workshops being organized by the NCW this year.

Explaining the rationale behind the workshops, Dr Syeda Hameed told UNI here that these were aimed at providing a platform to the State women's commissions and local NGOs to air their concerns and problems.

"It is a move aimed at taking the commission closer to the women and listening to their voices," Dr Hameed said.

The next of the regional workshops is being planned in Hyderabad next month, she added.

While a copy of the "North-east Declaration" was handed over to the Tripura Chief Minister to be taken to Shillong for the meeting of the North East Council to be presided over by the Prime Minister, copies of it would be also forwarded to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the Union Home and Human Resource Development (HRD) ministries here, the NCW member said.

While spotlighting the special problems of the women in the North-east, the Tripura workshop also underscored the common concerns that they shared with women in other parts of the country, Dr Hameed said.

However, foremost among the points in the North-east Declaration is the recognition of the trauma and victimization of women caught in the cross-fire between security forces and extremists.

"Rehabilitation must be ensured for women in such situations of armed conflicts," says the declaration.

The sense of isolation felt by women in the region was also brought to the fore. "While the land route to Agartala via India is 850 km, via Dhaka it is 320 km," said Dr Hameed to underline how cut off the women of the area feel from the rest of the country.

Also of particular concern to the women in the region is the spread of HIV/AIDS. Stressing the need for awareness programmes, the North-east Declaration calls for rehabilitation of women in prostitution and adoption of preventive measures such as the use of condoms to check the spread of the dreaded virus.

Recognizing the misery of the women of the minority community, the declaration highlights their helplessness in the face of talaq pronounced unilaterally by their husbands and their getting no mehr or maintenance.

While State women commissions exist at present in Tripura, Assam and Mizoram, the workshop called for the setting up of statutory women commissions in Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland and Sikkim at the earliest.

The women activists attending the workshop also stressed the need for setting up more rescue and shelter homes in the north-eastern States to provide a safe place to women thrown out of their homes.

At the same time, conditions of custodial homes need to be improved and the inmates classified into various categories like "criminals," "innocent," "vagrant" or "mentally ill" for their effective treatment. Also, women in such homes should be regularly produced before courts as per law and released if their stay exceeds 90 days, the workshop recommended.

In other recommendations similar to those voiced by women NGOs and State commissions in other parts of the country, the North-east workshop said the NCW and State commissions should be given prosecution powers. Also, a permanent "Lok Adalat" should be attached to each women's commission to render the agreements arrived at through the commission legally valid.

To help women in getting maintenance through courts under section 125 of the CrPC and to prevent bigamy, registration of marriages should be made compulsory. Also, all courts should be urged to set aside one fixed day in a week for hearing cases of women victims for early disposal and quick relief.