ULFA wants to talk, its bargaining chip: bodies of two boys who wanted to study

One of Surjit’s friends has handed him a photograph of the class. It’s the only picture Jaimurat has of his eldest son, killed in an ULFA bomb attack in the busy Machkhowa market in Guwahati.

The Friday attack, one in a series of strikes, has heightened public anger yet the ULFA-nominated Peoples’ Consultative Group (PCG) is insisting that Delhi must not stop negotiations with the extremists.

Writer Indira Goswami, who’s playing interlocutor, told The Indian Express: “Paresh Barua has informed me ULFA was not involved in the incidents. I have been told the situation had improved and that violence has stopped. I have conveyed this to Union Home Secretary V K Duggal. My biggest concern is that the talks should not break down.”

But ask Surjit’s mother Phulan Devi who stopped eating the day he died. “I don’t know who benefitted from the explosion. I don’t know anything about ULFA. Whoever did this has done an inhuman act. I can never forgive them. I have lost my dear son, a son I will never be able to get back,” she said.

For four days now, Jaimurat has not stepped out to sell milk. Migrants from Bihar, the family lives in a jhonpri at Kumarpara, paying Rs 700 a month. An official came to see them yesterday. “I don’t remember his name. He said a minister told him to inform us that the government will give us Rs 10,000 as compensation. What will I do with this money. Money can’t measure my son or my grief,” said Jaimurat.

In Laukuri village of Kamalpur, 46 km from Guwahati, another family mourns its eldest son. Twenty two-year-old Hiren Deka, the son of a farmer, also died in the Machkhowa market blast.

“I had great hopes from my son. He was a good student, very hard working. He used to meet his college expenses by selling vegetables in Guwahati. Can anybody explain to me how the ULFA benefited by killing my innocent son?” asked Bhubaneswar Deka.

Hiren was a leader of sorts. “He was the students’ union secretary in school. Later, he became joint secretary of the Puthimari Anchalik Students’ Union. He was also secretary of the Suryodaya Self-Help Group and the Laukuri Unnayan Samiti,” said Kanak Deka, Hiren’s uncle.

Hiren had enrolled for BA in the local Puthimari College. “But he was an ambitious boy. That’s why he was also learning computer in Guwahati. And he was meeting the expenses by selling vegetables. How many college-going boys would do that,” said Prabin Deka, another of his uncles. “I don’t know who has done this (explosion). Those who have caused my son’s death are like mad dogs,” said Bhubaneswar Deka.

Hiren’s mother Sabya is inconsolable. “You cannot understand a mother’s grief. I don’t know how to express it. I know one thing: whoever has given me this putra-shok (grief over a son’s death) will undergo greater suffering. This is written in the sashtras,” she said.

Not one official has cared to visit the Deka family. “Barring AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharyya, no one bothered to come here. Not even the local police officer. Uttara Kalita, the MLA who went door-to-door for votes two months ago and lives barely 3 km away, has also not bothered,” said neighbour Bhaben Deka.