Halflong, May 3: The Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) has been one of the most potent underground militant organization having its bases in the reserve forest in North Cachar Hills. After a round-up of some hard-core cadres and over ground workers of the organization from Maibang and Hatikhali, it has been reliably learnt that most of the money collected by these insurgents in being used for personal gains. Most of the hardcore militants are running transport and timber business under the false names of the overground workers of the organization besides, pocketing money amounting to almost 25 per cent of their collection as loans to themselves on various accounts. Recent recoveries of Rs 4.19 lakh from the house of Sambhulal Thaosen alias Nigro, a self-styled second lieutenant and Rs 7.35 lakh from the house of Bogen Sengyung alias Yathung alias Yangkshadao, another self-styled sergeant major of the outfit, bears the testimony to this fact, disclosed the Army source.

Fancy items like television, VCD, Casios, motorcycle and autorickshaws confiscated by the security forces have been financed by the DHD cadres and mainly by Nairingdao alias Daula alias Hemanto Haulagupu and kept in the house of different overground workers for their personal use. Investigations further revealed that huge sum of money were siphoned away to run prostitution rackets at various hotels at Lumding and Matikhali. Investigation have also revealed that some of the over ground workers have been known to siphon off some of the booty collected as taxes when handing over the amounts to the outfit. The trend has been visible in Umrangso and Maibang.

Kokrajhar, May 3: These are God's own children. Half-fed, half-naked kids who have survived a violent past, going through a miserable present and heading for an uncertain future. These are the children of the so-called relief camps at Joypur and Amguri, set up by the government to house the victims of the Bodo-Santhal riots that had rocked Kokrajhar and its adjoining areas in 1996.

Robin Hembram, a 26-year-old Adivasi student leader at the Joypur camp, told me one agonising tale after another as I landed on a damp afternoon this week at Joypur. This camp has been his new home since he was displaced from the Karigaon area in the summer of 1996.

In February, the camp's 17,000-odd inmates got government ration for only 10 days (620 and 400 grams of rice for each adult and child respectively per day and about 50 grams of salt). In March again, rice was supplied for another 10 days. And in April, the inmates had to make do with the supply for just five days. A medical doctor last visited the Joypur relief camp on October 23, 1999 when GK Pillai, joint secretary (north-east) in the ministry of home affairs, had come there.

Every morning, Lakhiram Mormu (50) and Domaram Kahar (27), and scores of others, leave their mud-and-thatch hutments to the jungles in the vicinity to look for wild tubers and roots on which to feed on. Others like Phagu Lakra sets out with his axe and some other iron implements to dig out the stumps of trees -- felled illegally in the past -- to cut them into pieces and sell them to buyers along the highway. After all, every rupee is important.

Eating a meal of mashed wild potatoes (which need to be soaked in water overnight), Birsa Kujur (60) recalled how his wife was stung by a snake one morning while she was hunting for wild tubers. Phagu Lakra is happy for he has managed to get two jackfruits. "We are going to have this today with chillies and salt," he said.

There are two makeshift pharmacies at this relief camp, the stock of medicines include the basic life savers like dextrose saline. "Most of the people here suffer from diarrhoea and malaria," said Chapal Hembram, the �epharmacist.' Hembram, who earlier worked at a pharmacy in Kokrajhar, said there has been no government medicine supply at all this year.

Deaths have become a routine matter. "Almost every alternate day, there is a death here due to illness and lack of treatment. Look, that stretch of land has become full with graves," said Robin Hembram.

Life, of course, has to go on. The small sign board at the entrance to the camp proclaims that the rather long thatch-roof barrack is a school. It is the Joypur Relief Memorial School, set up in 1996 with the help of the Lutheran World Service (LWS). In fact, the Christian missionaries belonging to the LWS is about the only non-government organisation working among the refugees.

The school has about 1,000 students. "Six of our students have appeared for the HSLC examinations this year," said Raghunath Tudu, the headmaster. Tudu himself has studied only till the 12th standard. There are 13 teachers, all inmates of the camp. The LWS has been providing some funds towards their salaries -- Rs 550 per month for the headmaster and Rs 450 for the others.

From one of the bye-lanes emerge four drummers in full flow. They were still on the job, a day after they performed at a wedding. Baha Murmu, a girl from the camp got married to a boy from the nearby Simorgaon Adivasi settlement. "We served the groom's party with red tea and puffed rice (muri)," said Sonamoni Murmu, a relative.

There is a weaving centre, a church, three temples, a barber's shop and a small market within the camp. It presents a picture of people coming to terms with the reality. A picture that shows no signs of change for the better.

I drive on next to the Amguri relief camp, closer to Kokrajhar. This camp has Bodo and Rava inmates and was �eadopted' by the Army's 18 Field Regiment on October 12, 1998. This is a smaller place and has about 1100 inmates living in 179 thatch hutments.

It is the same story here. Rations for five days in April, no doctors, no medicines. Said Boloram Narzary (70),"The government babus expect us to eat for five days in a month and then go hungry for the rest of the month. It is better to die than live such a life."

"The government has promised us regular relief supplies and rehabilitation. But, nothing has happened till today. Our children have a bleak future," Mukul Rabha, a village headman, now an inmate at this camp, said.

Army soldiers come to this camp once or twice a week and help keep the surroundings of the camp clean. "We are happy at their gesture but we want to go back to our villages," a shop owner, Molen Narzary, said.

Why aren't they returning to their village homes? Baloram Narzary has the answer: "We were living in peace with the Santhals. But now, after the riots, we cannot trust them." Unlike the inmates of the Joypur camp who have nowhere to return as majority of them were illegal encroachers in forest reserves, the refugees at Amguri are from five villages -- Mainaguri, Samaguri, Bolomguri, Dumbruguri I and Dumbruguri II. The people go to their villages to cultivate their land and return at nightfall to the camp. At this camp, too, there are schools, four in all. And here, too, the LWS is the only NGO working.

Except the government, everybody else seems to be worried over the plight of the refugees. More than 200,000 of them, victims of the Bodo-Santhal riots, are still in supposedly government-run camps. About 1.10 lakh refugees are Adivasis, about 70,000 are Bodos and the rest comprise immigrant Muslims and others.

Kokrajhar deputy commissioner J.I. Kathar admitted that ration could be provided for only five days in April. "I agree that the condition of the inmates at the camps are not good. But, one must understand that they have been extremely poor even before they arrived at the relief camps," Kathar said.

The DC told me that the government was spending Rs 16 lakh a day on the upkeep of the inmates. The relief manual stipulates the provision of 620 gms of rice per adult per day (400 gms in case of a child), mustard oil and pulses. But all that an adult camp inmate has been getting is three kgs of rice per month (for five days at the rate of 620 grams per day). How the government claims to be spending Rs 16 lakh a day remains a mystery.

Dibrugarh, May 5: The Central Government's attitude has once again proved detrimental. The repressive methods of the Centre compelled many youths to go underground and lead an arms struggle for secession. Incidentally, there is a similarity between the ULFA and the Naxals in Bengal with the difference that the latter has directed its movement of class liberation and the broader perspective of the nation while the former is more region-specific. The initial ideological base of the outfit has gradually been diluted for which its leadership is largely responsible. Irresponsible killings, large-scale extortion, moral degradation, lack of able leaders at various levels and finally its open support to Pakistan during the Kargil operation along with its alleged links with ISI has eroded its popular base. Significantly, the leadership of the outfit has refuted these charges and termed it as a machination of the RAW and other security agencies. But, the confessional statements of the surrendered cadres and the various intelligence reports contradict the claims made by the leadership.

1999
Police arrest: 25 hard-core militants and 77 linkmen.
Army arrest: A hard-core militant and 16 linkmen.
Total ammunition recovered: 103 Nos.
Total militants killed: Eight Nos.

2000 (January)
Police arrest: 10 militants.
Recovery of arms and vehicle: One Yamaha motorcycle, one pistol.

February
Police arrest: Four militants.

March
Police arrest: 10 militants
Recovery: Rs 5,000 and large number of incriminating documents.

April
Militants killed: A hard-core militant, Pona Bosa at Tingkhong.
Recovery: Two hand granades.

The chart given above shows a comparative activity of the group and success of security forces in Dibrugarh district over a period of one year and four months.

The extent of the outfit's eroding popularity can be gauged by the fact that Dibrugarh, once a stronghold of the outfit, has been reduced to the periphery of organizational activities. The same is also evident in the Nalbari district following killing of some top ULFA leaders and subsequent surrenders of others. In the unified command structures, the security forces are exerting maximum pressure and as a result, the ultras are going after soft targets like security personnel only to make their presence felt and perhaps to boost up their flagging morale.

In the final analysis, militancy can never be rooted out from the State until and unless the political establishment, the intelligensia and the policy makers at the Centre do not address the root cause, which would not be possible without political will, sincerity and transparency.

Agartala, May 5: Militants beheaded a 60-year-old non-tribal woman at Mendi village under Kamalpur police station in Tripura's Dhalai district yesterday.

The widow was the lone non-tribal in the area. Mendi's population was mixed not long ago, but a series of militant attacks forced all non-tribals to flee the village and take shelter elsewhere.

The victim, Shanti Nama, reportedly stayed back at her ancestral home because she had no one to turn to for help.Her husband Rajbihari passed away last year, while two of her relatives died in militant custody.

Sources said a group National Liberation Front of Tripura militants raided Shanti Nama's house yesterday and bullied her. She responded to the militants' taunts by daring them to shoot her dead.

The rebels subsequently beheaded the woman in the courtyard of her house and escaped.

Assam Rifles jawans from a nearby camp reached the spot almost two hours after the incident took place, the sources said.

Kokrajhar, May 6 (IANS): Hundreds of tribal refugees in Assam have threatened to take up arms with the State Government failing to provide them food, healthcare and security in relief camps. Faced with acute hunger and insecurity, more than 150,000 refugees of the tribal Adivasi community in western Assam are becoming increasingly restive. The Adivasis were forced to flee their homes due to continuing ethnic clashes with aboriginal Bodos, fighting for a separate tribal homeland in Assam.

"There is hunger and a near starvation-like situation in almost all relief camps with no food or security being provided to the inmates by the government. We have no option other than taking up arms for survival," Robin Hebrom, a young Adivasi refugee leader, told India Abroad News Service.

Some 500 Adivasi refugees have already floated two rebel outfits -- the Adivasi Cobra Force and the Bircha Commando Force. Both groups have been involved in abducting people for ransom, besides looting food-laden trucks and raiding buses on national highways. "Both Bodo and Adivasi rebel groups are involved in kidnapping people and looting vehicles. Security measures have been tightened," said John Ingti Kathar, the District Magistrate of Kokrajhar.

Refugee leaders said they were provided rice and salt for just five to 10 days a month by the government, leading to frustration and anger among refugees living in makeshift camps for the past five years. "When people have to survive on wild roots and rats found in the jungles, there is bound to be resentment. We don't want to take up arms, but the situation may force us to do so and we are prepared for that," said Sonaram Hebrom, a teacher in an informal school for Adivasi children. "There is no government security and to fight the armed Bodo militants we must do something."

Government officials admit food supplies to the relief camps has been inadequate but maintain that the Adivasis were no better off before the ethnic clashes made them refugees.

Dibrugarh, May 8: Three persons were killed and several others injured including police officials -- some of them seriously -- when police resorted to firing to disperse an unruly mob at Dibrugarh on Monday morning. A 14-hour curfew has been clamped in the town following the incident, and a magisterial-level enquiry has been ordered by the district administration.

Meanwhile, five Ulfa militants were killed, including a self-styled captain while 10 others were apprehended by security forces in two separate incidents in different parts of Assam during the last 24 hours.

The incident at Dibrugarh took place when a group of people took out a procession with dead bodies of a father and son from Dibrugarh Medical College at 9 A.M., towards the crematorium.

The processionists who were carrying placards and banners, raised slogans against surrendered Ulfa militants and police. Police tried to prevent them at Graham Bazar for violating Sec 144 following which a scuffle ensued with the processionists.

Police claimed that the crowd turned violent and started pelting stones and hurled projectiles at the security personnel, injuring several of them. As all efforts to control the unruly mob failed, it resorted to firing, killing two persons on the spot, police said.

The deceased have been identified as Jiban Paul (45) and Yousuf Khan of Santipara area of the town, while the seriously injured have been identified as Jitu Sarkar (26), Munna Balmiki (30), Mohammad Rafique and Shyamal Nandi.

Senior police officials claimed that the incident might have turned for the worse had they not intervened.

Mentionably, the bodies of Sivdharilal Paswan and his son Dhiraj were recovered from the banks of Dibrugarh on Sunday.

After the incident, sporadic incidents of violence broke out in many parts of the town. It continued for about six hours, till curfew was imposed

Meanwhile, in a joint operation launched by the Army, para-military forces and police, five hard-core Ulfa militants were killed including the second-in-command of the banned outfit�fs 28 Battalion - self-styled captain Pradip Gogoi in a fierce encounter at No 1 Pithasuti Pathargaon village, 60 km from Tinsukia in the wee hours of Monday.

District superintendent of police PC Saloi told The Northeast Daily over telephone from Tinsukia that the militants were hiding in a hut at the village. "After receiving a tip-off from intelligence sources, the security forces cordoned off the entire area. The militants fired. Our men retaliated. In the ensuing encounter, the five militants died on the spot," he said. The militants first started firing when their guard warned them of the approaching security men.

Apart from Gogoi, the other deceased were identified as self-styled Lt Pravin Gohain, self-styled Lt Ajan Dihingia, Lakhi Moran and Abhijan Doley. Two AK-47, one AK-56 rifles, two grenades, six magazines and other ammunition were recovered from the spot.

The SP informed that Gogoi was involved in a number of violent incidents in Upper Assam including the killing of two police personnel in the recent past.

Meanwhile, security forces have intensified their operations to flush out others militants hiding in the district.

In another incident, Army apprehended an action group commander of Ulfa -- self-styled captain Biju Deka alias Aswini Deka at Naharbari village near Tangla in Darrang district on Sunday night.

One Chinese-made pistol, a magazine and other ammunition were recovered from his possession.