TRAPPED IN HELL
Death, disease and fear have become part of life for inmates of Assam relief camps
We will not leave this camp even if the government assures us security. We don’t trust this government. It has sided with the Bodos,” says Barik Sikdar, 58, a landless farmer from Kalaigaon in Chirang district. Sikdar is one of the 4,893 refugees camping in Amguri High School. He has been surviving on dal and rice for a month. He shares a small room with 15 strangers. Yet he feels safe here. He is too scared to step out. On August 25, five people from the camp were hacked to death at Mongolia Bazar.
If the world outside the camp is one of bullets and arrows, life inside the camp is hellish. The open- air kitchen is just a few metres away from the lavatory. With children moving around, one has to negotiate one’s way through human excreta. Most inmates suffer from diarrhoea and high fever. “Doctors visit the camp once a week, but they are not there when we need them,” says Rubul Sarkar, 33, who makes a living by selling betel nuts.
Twenty- three- year- old Nurunnisa gave birth to her second child nine days ago, at a relief camp in Bhowraguri in Kokrajhar. There was a nurse at the time of childbirth, but since then the mother and the child have got no special care. When asked about vaccination, Nurunnisa gives a blank look. At lunch, she shares a meal of dal and rice with her husband and their three- year- old son. “One person is allotted 1 kg rice for three days. It’s too little,” says her husband Ismail, 34, a farmer. Yet, Ismail has no plan to return and claim his land. “We will settle in some other part of Assam but will not live in Bodoland Territorial Area District ( BTAD). Life is more important than land,” he says.
But it’s land that has caused over 235,000 people to rot in the 215 relief camps across the districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Dhubri and Bongaigaon. The Bodo leadership claims that a majority of Muslims in BTAD are illegal immigrants. On August 27, a team from the Bodoland People’s Front ( BPF) led by Hagrama Mohilary presented a dossier to Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde claiming that about 78,000 hectares of land was encroached upon. That is the reason why they want to verify the land rights of the people in the relief camps before