TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
Guwahati: The demand for similar kind of punishment on Ranjan Daimary, the dreaded chief of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and others is in the air after the execution of Mumbai bomb blast convict Yakub Memon
Daimary who spearheads a faction of the banned militant outfit in Assam is accused of a number of heinous crimes including the infamous October 30 serial bomb blast in 2008 in Assam which killed more than a hundred in different places of the state.
A rally in Guwahati against ULFA recently by citizens. (TCN Photo)
The victims, most of them are either petty businessman, rickshaw puller or people belong to financially poor background, are frustrated with the development. Not just Daimary, there are several others who have also committed heinous crimes of killing innocent people including school children.
At present Daimary is fulfilling his promise to participate in the ‘peace process’ with the central government and is leading a luxury life at his home. In 2013, Daimary alias DR Nabla was released from the Guwahati Central Jain on conditional bail after three years of imprisonment.
Daimary was granted conditional bail in all the 13 cases against him, including the one relating to the October 30 serial blasts in which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) named him as the prime accused. The nine serial blasts triggered by the outfit in Guwahati, Kokrajhar, Bongaigaon and Barpeta Road left more than 100 dead and 545 people injured. The insurgent leader was handed over to India by Bangladesh on May 1, 2010.
Naren Tumung, an auto-rickshaw driver, whose entire body was, paralysed following the blast, said, “It has become impossible for me to afford my treatment. Not only me, there are other auto-rickshaw drivers who are going through a tough phase”.
Like Tumung, there are hundreds in the state who have been suffering like this or have seen dying of their near and dear ones in the series of violence triggered by insurgent groups like United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), NDFB and others.
NDFB chief Ranjan Daimary (file photo)
“We are made to suffer for no reasons. How that is possible that a criminal like Daimary is now roaming free while our pain will remain with us forever? The guilty must be punished in an exemplary way so that no other person thinks to repeat such acts. We are living in a democratic country and our plight is an irony to it,” he said.
The Forum for Terrorists Victim Family, Assam (FTVFA) – an organization floated by family members of all the victims of terrorists’ attacks in Assam – has expressed their displeasure at the different kind of treatment given to the two criminals with the same level of crime.
“This is disturbing that after killing so many innocent lives, the killer is leading a very comfortable life after granting bail. Our family members died without any fault of theirs.
Ranjan Daimary is responsible for the crime and he must get exemplary punishment. This is injustice done to all the innocent souls who have been victims of this non-sense business. We have always been appealing to the government to take necessary steps to ensure justice and bring peace to the state. But we don’t know when such a day will come,” said Indranil Kalita, publicity secretary of the forum.
Daimary headed the NDFB since its inception on October 3, 1986. The outfit was originally known as the Boro Security Force and rechristened NDFB in 1993. The separatist outfit has been waging an armed campaign for a ‘sovereign Bodoland’ and ‘self-determination of the Bodos’.
However, the NDFB general assembly on December 15, 2008, replaced Daimary with B Sungthagra (alias Dhiren Boro) alleging involvement of founder chief of the outfit in the 2008 serial blasts. This led to a split with one faction led by Sungthagra known as the NDFB (Progressive) and the other as the NDFB (Ranjan Daimary).
Similarly, the militants of ULFA had triggered a blast in Assam’s Dhemaji district during Independence Day celebrations killing at least 13 school children among others. After five years of that gruesome incident, ULFA took responsibilities but no punishment was ever meted out to the people who were at guilt.
On the contrary, some top ULFA leaders were given warm welcome for ‘peace dialogue’ with the central government after that.