By Abdul Gani, TwoCircles.net,
Gendabari (Goalpara): For Beauti Rabha Diwali will never be the same as every sound of a cracker will haunt her forever. What she thought to be a sound of cracker on a pleasant Sunday evening of Diwali was actually a bullet which pierced through her husband Jayanta Rabha’s chest at a remotest part of Assam’s Goalpara district.
Jayanta was one of the seven ill-fated souls who were gunned down by suspected Garo militants as they opened fire at a group of people who gathered at a bamboo walled tiny village tea stall at a place called Gendabari which is a few hundred metres away from Assam Meghalaya border.
Beauti Rabha (Left) being consoled by a relative near their house in a public gathering.
After losing her husband, the 21 year old girl is inconsolable now. “I don’t know what to do now. He was all in all in my life. He was more than a friend and a mentor,” the girl said weeping as her mother-in-law Gantami Rabha tried to console her.
It was just another evening when Beauty went to kitchen to prepare for dinner. Then she asked her husband to go out to bring a packet of salt which was missing in her kitchen.
“As if the death was waiting for him outside. Just a few while after he stepped out of house, I heard some sounds like cracker bursting. I thought it to be a Diwali cracker but it was a sound which took away my husband,” said Beauti who got married a couple of years back.
Not just that, her mother-in-law Gantami Rabha has double blow as she lost her two sons to the bullets of the militants. “How can people kill innocent youths? What did they do? They were happy doing agriculture works in fields. Now, how can I live,” this is the pain of a helpless mother.
Every now and then these people have been living under this fear. Because such type of activity is almost regular in this remote part of the state. Not just that, two years back there took place a communal riot between the Garo and Rabha community which saw several villagers being killed and hundreds of houses gutted.
Now the villagers are demanding a Police out Post for their safety in the area. The village head Kanak Chandra Rabha has already submitted written memorandums to the leaders who have visited the spot.
“This is not the first time that we are demanding for an Out Post. We have been demanding for it for a long time but nobody pays any heed to our prayers,” said the village head man.
This is the tale of these poor and simple easy going people as time and again they have been betrayed by the government. Assam’s prime regional political party Asom Gana Parishad’s president Prafulla Kumar Mahanta who visited the spot and met the family members of the victims also held the government responsible.
“It’s the negligence on the parts of the state government that such kind of activities keeps on repeating time and again. Both the Assam and Meghalaya government should sit to sort out problems so that these simple villagers can live a peaceful life,” Mahanta said.
There has been tension brewing in the area since last month, particularly due to the proposed election to the Rabha Hasong Autonomous Council (RHAC). While the Rabha community is happy after Assam government has announced that the three-phased polls to the RHAC would be held on November 13, 16 and 25, other communities living in the areas, including the Garo, the religious minority and Khasi have been opposing the polls, until the government excludes non-Rabha community dominated villages from the RHAC.
While there are about 779 villages under the RHAC, including areas under Goalpara district and southern part of Kamrup district, non-Rabha communities claim that the Rabhas are a minority in at least 382 villages and hence these villages should be excluded from the list of RHAC.