Back on troubled track

At the Lumding junction,about 400 people board the train8211;of which only 136 are regular passengers with tickets; security personnel and railway staff make up the rest. But as the train moves on the serpentine metre gauge track through thick jungles and hills,the number of securitymen around it keeps growing. CRPF jawans stand on both sides of the track,on hillstops and railway stations,while jawans of the Assam Police are positioned inside three bunkers built inside the train.

Manderdisa is the first station in the hill district. A group of Dimasa children squat on the platform,selling vegetables. A passenger runs out of the train and comes back with cucumbers. Harish Chandra Das,a railway signal operator on way to join duty at Harangajao,too does his vegetable shopping on the platform. After a 2-minute halt,the train pulls out of the station,leaving the children on the platform with happy smiles and empty baskets.

In 1892,when the India Office in London cleared the construction of a railway line,connecting Chittagong port with Dibrugarh,to carry coal from Upper Assam,the biggest challenge for the British was to construct the 148-km stretch through the formidable North Cachar Hills. But the Assam-Bengal Railway Company,founded in London,built it in less than 10 years. The advent of the railways meant more economic activity and better communication between villages perched on hillocks and those beyond gorges and rivers in the Barail mountains.

Restoring the railway services in the backdrop of a militant attack seems to as challenging as what the British did in those days, says Shyam Jagannathan,deputy commissioner of the hill district that is spread over 4,888 sq km and has over 15 different tribes and sub-tribes.

North Cachar Hills was once Assams most peaceful district. It stayed that way even during the peak of the United Liberation Front of Assams ULFA activities. But over the years,it has become one of the hotbeds of militancy. Black Widow or the Jewel Garlosa faction of the Dima Halam Daoga DHD-J may be the most talked of outfit but both factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim NSCN are active in the region too.

The Northeast Frontier Railways records show 52 attacks on railway trains and property in the hill district between March 2006 and May 2009,resulting in the death of at least 81 people,including 22 security personnel. Of the 23 railway stations in the hill district,five8211;Dijaobra,Kalachand,Dihakho,Mupa and Phaiding8211;have been lying abandoned for several weeks now after the railway employees fled to safety in the wake of repeated attack by the militants.

Two national railway projects in the district8211;the Rs 4,000-crore broad gauge project and the Rs 800-crore East-West Corridor stretch8211;have come to a halt as contractors have fled even after having paid huge sums as tax to the militants.

I am so happy that the train has started again, says 60-year-old Jirendra Kachari in Haflong Hindi,a local version of the national language thats spoken in this district. He trekked about 6 km from Purana Daukhrang village to catch the train on Thursday at Mupa.

In Maibang,the eighth station in the hill section,it is the day of the weekly market. Kachari,a Dimasa tribal,is carrying a basket of betel nuts and betel leaves to sell. With a family of six to run,these are hard times for him and other villagers.

With the train services resuming,55-year old Tapan Das,whose supports his family of 10 with the tea stall he runs outside the Langting station,is happy. We had been sitting idle for nearly three months. Today,the train stopped here for 15 minutes and I sold rice,roti and tea for at least Rs 300, he says. His three sons had to move to Lumding to work as construction labourers while his daughter Tumpa has stopped going to school for fear of the militants.

Kilon Sumer,a Khasi woman from Khasia-basti,who walked 4 km to Bandarkhal to transport two baskets of banana to Haflong,is upbeat. Three months and I have seen no cash. I wish peace returns. Otherwise we will all starve, she says.

North Cachar Hillss problems have been compounded by bamboo flowering in the last two years,signaling an imminent famine,as it did in the Mizo Hills in the late 1950s8211;one that had also triggered off one of the worst insurgencies in the Northeast. The bamboo groves of NC Hills feed two big paper mills of Hindustan Paper Corporation at Jagiroad and Panchgram,and with trouble here,the bamboo supplies have also gone down.

Militancy has not only hit development projects and the common man but has also brought about mistrust and suspicion among different ethnic groups. The recent series of violence has involved attacks on villages inhabited by the Dimasa and Zeme tribes,the two most important tribes in NC Hills. While militants posing as saviours of their respective tribes have been blamed for the attacks,over 4,000 people have been rendered homeless in these attacks. At least 50 people have been killed and the authorities plan to shift people in about 50 villages to safer locations.

We are shifting them in a phased manner in order to provide them security till the situation is brought under complete control, says deputy commissioner Jagannathan. Twelve sites for creating these clusters have been already identified and Superintendent of Police Anurag Tangkha has already drawn up a security plan for these relocated villagers.

Lodi is where one of the relief camps for people rendered homeless in militant attacks has been set up. Here in the heart of Haflong town derived from a Dimasa word Haflaw,meaning ant hill,the district headquarters,over 1,200 people who belong to the Zeme tribe now live in what used to be a primary school,a high school and a cultural hall.

They have come here from seven villages around Haflong and they include as many as 674 children and 30 elderly people, said Wangnei Jeme,a retired government officer and resident of Lodi who is supervising the relief camp.

Paueilyile Pame is the camps youngest resident. She born this May. Her mother was shot as we all ran out after they set our houses on fire on June 16, recalls Paueilyiles 70-year-old grandmother,Lungliale Pame,holding the baby close to her. Takheuyile Pame was killed on the spot and her 18-month-old baby,soaked in her blood,was rescued by villagers two hours later. Three other members of the family were also among the 16 killed in the attack on Michidui village,about 20 km from Haflong,on June 16. The childs father Namshimbuing managed to escape unhurt.

Lodi and a number of villages in the hill district have now become little fortresses. As you enter Lodi,you are frisked at two gates,first by a group of young men and then by a group of young women. We cannot take a risk. We have to frisk everybody, says Soneing Jeme,a member of the Village Defence Party VDP,a voluntary force that exists in every village in Assam,noting down names,address and telephone numbers of visitors in a register.

Hardly a kilometre away from Lodi is Muolong,where four Dimasa families live along with 40 Hrangkhol,two Bengali and three Assamese families. The residents of Muolong too have erected a gate at the entrance of the locality. We dont allow any outsider after 7 p.m., says Pale Hrangkhol,one of the six youth manning the Muolong gate.

On top of a hillock in Muolong stands Doordarshans Lower Power Transmitter for Haflong. The transmitter stopped functioning on June 4 after all its six employees fled following an extortion notice served by militants.

Bringing normalcy back to the district is important. Poor tribals live in far-flung areas where communication is often a problem due to the difficult terrain. And then the hill section railway track is also the main supply line for Mizoram,Tripura,southern Manipur and the Barak Valley in southern Assam, says deputy commissioner Jagannathan.

The trains return to the tracks is being seen as a step in that direction.