Muslims under siege in Assam: Part 3
By Diganta Sharma for TwoCircles.net,
Guwahati: An old man was searching for something in the ashes of what once was his home. With the help of a bamboo log he was busy in his mission. I called him but he remained busy as if he did not hear anything. For him the thing he was searching for was more important than the people who approached him.
Until August 17th , there was a house in the place of ashes. It was his abode. But at noon on the very day that abode was turned into ashes unexpectedly. The old man somehow saved his life.
What he could save as property was just his lungi that he had on and the towel on his shoulder.
Zoinal Ali searching among the ashes of his house
Not only this, three other houses were also burned into ashes. The miscreants set the houses on fire but the families somehow escaped the attack.
Later on that old man and his family had to live in the relief camp for some days.
Now after returning from the camp he is searching for something in the foundation of the house. When this reporter asked him what he was searching for he lifted his head for a moment and got busy in search operation again. A lady who was with him said: “For the last three days, the man has been searching for money. He was keeping some money, maybe some hundred rupee notes for the marriage of his daughter. We have told him that everything including the money was burned but he doesn’t listen to us. So this search continues.”
Zoinal Ali, 80, is the man who is searching for money. He was a labourer who had kept some money to spend in the marriage of his daughter. He saw the house being burned and the money turned into ashes but now he was not in a position to accept the reality.
From August 17 onwards he is wearing the same lungi. The woman told this reporter that he had stopped having food since that day.
Burned village
Now the question arises, should a man of 80 be a target of a movement that wants to expel the illegal Bangladeshis from Assam? How can an old man along with son and daughter-in-law with grand children can be a barrier to the supporter of this movement?
Not only Zoinal Ali, other 36 families were affected in the attack on that day. As a result many hundred people have been rendered homeless along the Pachnoi River that separates Udalguri from Sonitpur district.
Apart from the attack, the miscreants plundered and looted the people there.
The local police are believed to have been aware of such incidents going to happen before hand. But they remained silent observer when the miscreants were looting and burning houses in front of them. So, the miscreants got enough inspiration and consequently two villages of the Muslim community had to lose everything, including six youths turned into physical retardation.
Education has now become a distant dream for the school going children.
Relief camp under open sky
This reporter happened to meet Amena Khatun, a victim of the incident at the village. She said: “From that day I am wearing this piece of cloth as this is the only garment I have. When I saw the miscreants approaching the village I along with my children ran to the nearby village. The miscreants burned everything and took away the domestic animals like cows and goats with them. Did we do any wrong for which we had to suffer this tragedy?”
Another victim Manowara Begum blamed the police for the destruction as everything happened in their presence. Now, the villagers are staying in the relief camp of Sapprabari village. Fear still looms large in their eyes.
Another victim Mohammad Ali said that four years back he was at Udalguri. There too the Bodo miscreants did the same thing. After the incident Ali came to Sapprabari along with his seventy-year-old mother, wife and three children.
Now security as well as food has become a prime concern for those people.
Will they get justice and compensation? What about the miscreants? Are they going to be punished? The very observation of the scenes at the village makes it clear that the movement to expel illegal Bangladeshis from the soil of Assam has become a tragedy for some other innocent sections of the same society.
This is the third part of the TwoCircles.net special series on Assam anti-Muslim violence. http://www.twocircles.net/special_reports/muslims_under_siege_assam.html