On December 23, by nightfall, 16-year-old Laxmi Murmu was helping her mother prepare dinner. Suddenly, she heard gunshots in their courtyard. Her mother ran out to see what had happened. More gunshots followed. Fearing something was wrong, Murmu too ran outside. She found her parents lying in a pool of blood. They were dead. Masked militants, wielding guns, were walking towards the huts in the neighbourhood. All Murmu knows is that it was the NDFB - the National Democratic Front of Bodoland - that killed her parents. She is now living in a relief camp at Tinikhuti High School with her two younger siblings, aged 11 and 13, and some relatives. Murmu is one of the 3,000 people who have sought refuge in this camp.
That fateful day is now an infamous bloody day in Assam's history; around 80 people, most of them belonging to the tea-tribe community, were massacred within a span of a few hours by Bodo militants belonging to the outlawed Songbijit-faction of NDFB. The series of attacks was carried out along the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh and Assam-Bhutan borders in the two districts of Kokrajhar and Sonitpur. More than 200,000 people were forced to flee their homes and seek shelter at the 139 relief camps set up across four districts.
Bodo militant outfits have been waging a violent war against the Indian state since the 1980s, demanding a sovereign Bodo homeland. In the past too, non-Bodos, including Assamese, Bangla-speaking Muslims, the tea-tribe community or the Santhals, were at the receiving end of this violence.
In 2003, one of the two Bodo militant outfits - Bodo Liberation Tigers (the other being NDFB) - had surrendered and signed the historic Bodo Accord with the Centre that paved the way for the formation of the autonomous Bodoland Territorial Council under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. The surrendered members of the Bodo Liberation Tigers formed the Bodoland People's Front, the political party which has been in power in the Bodoland Territorial Council since its formation. The four Bodo tribe-inhabited districts of Kokrajhar, Chirang, Udalguri and Baksa form the present-day Bodoland and are called the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts.
However, even with the signing of the Bodo Accord, the demand for a separate Bodo homeland did not end and neither did the armed struggle. The other militant outfit, NDFB, continued with its violent struggle and later split into three factions. The two factions - NDFB (Progressive) and NDFB (Ranjan Daimary) - are currently engaged in 'peace talks' with the Centre. The Songbijit faction, or NDFB (S), is a splinter group of NDFB (R) and was formed in 2012 when NDFB (R) too chose the path of dialogue, as did NDFB (P) two years before it.
Since its formation, NDFB (S), led by Songbijit Ingti Kathar, the former deputy of Ranjan Daimary, has been indulging in violent activities, including indiscriminate killings. In January last year, the outfit was responsible for the killings of Hindi-speaking people in Bodoland. In May, around 40 Bangla-speaking Muslims in Bodoland were killed by the outfit in a series of attacks, which led to communal tension in the state. In August, the outfit dragged a 16-year-old girl and shot her at point blank range at least nine times in front of her parents on the suspicion that she was a police informer. The news of the killing made headlines, national and international.
Hitting back
The police view the December 23 killings as an act of retaliation to the police operations against the outfit's cadres. For the last four months, the Assam Police have been carrying out offensives against the outfit by either killing or arresting its members and leaders. On December 22, the outfit had warned of retaliatory attacks. "The outfit perhaps wants to divert our attention, but our operations against it will not stop," says Khagen Sharma, director-general of Assam Police. The operations of the outfit are restricted to the four Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts and the adjoining districts of Darang and Sonitpur.
"There were lapses on the part of the state as well as the Centre. It was a joint failure that we could not apprehend the attacks," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said after the attacks. "The Intelligence Bureau had inputs of the attacks, but by the time it came to us, it was too late. If it was the failure of the Assam Police, it was also the failure of the army as it heads the unified command structure in Assam," Gogoi added.
Though it is unclear why the outfit chose to target members of a particular community, many believe the tea-tribe people are a soft target because the areas they live in are remote and largely inaccessible. This was the reason why the news of the attack reached the authorities late, giving the outfit time to carry on with the killings in different locations.
Talks or force?
The poorly thought out "talks adventure" of the central and state governments has boomeranged, says Mahendra Pujari, academician and political analyst. "They thought the Nagaland experiment could be applied everywhere in toto, without analysing the local dynamics. In the case of Assam, the 'talks' culture and turning the surrendered militant leaders into celebrities overnight further encouraged others to indulge in more violence. The centre needs to take a serious re-look at its strategies about dealing with militancy in Assam," he adds.
Unlike in the past, the Centre, however, appeared tough this time. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh landed in Assam on the day right after the attacks. Sending out a tough message to the militants, he said the Centre would treat them as terrorists and would adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards them. He also ruled out holding 'peace talks' with those who indulge in "cold-blooded murders". "This is not just a militant attack but an act of terrorism. We will treat these militants at par with terrorists and as we have zero tolerance policy towards terrorism, we will also have the same policy with regard to these militants," said Singh. He also announced that an army operation would be launched against the outfit. General Dalbir Singh, the chief of army staff, also visited Assam to take stock of the security situation and undertook an aerial survey of the violence-hit areas. He asked for greater synergy with the central and state intelligence and security agencies. Directing the troops to extend all possible support to the state administration in bringing back normality, he said he would maintain a close watch on the dynamics of the region.
'Operation All Out', under which about 9,000 soldiers and paramilitary personnel have been pressed into action on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border, is at present underway. The Centre has sought the help of Bhutan and Myanmar in flushing out the militants from their soils. NDFB (S) is believed to have set up bases in the Taga region of Myanmar and along the Indo-Bhutan border.
