Killing has Become the Norm to Solve Insurgency in North East

On CPI Leader Manoj Deka’s Brutal Muder by Assam Police

Manoj Deka’s brutal murder by Assam police in the name of counter insurgency operation holds multiple shocking implications about current politics in Assam. Manoj Deka was a senior leader of the Communist Party of India, Assam and held the post of the Morigaon district CPI General Secretary. On 1st July 2008 he was stopped by the Assam police while returning home from the market and searched. He showed his bags and let him be checked. This was lead by the Officer in charge Kamal Bora and a PSO Rafikul Hussain.With the pretext of ‘searching’ the commodities bought from the market were poured down on the road and when Deka protested he was insulted, pushed with great force that he hit a nearby electric pole and fainted. It’s reported that they wanted to take him to the police station for no reason. Manoj Deka regained consciousness for some time and again dropped down. The police threw away his bicycle and scattered the commodities on the road. Local people took Manoj Deak to the hospital.

Various versions of this incident have been narrated in the media. According to some, the victim was publicly insulted and also treated like a petty theif or robber. In another version, aired in a local news channel, his head was repeatedly smashed against the electric pole until he collapsed—a local daily’s editorial attested to this. But whatever are the versions, Manoj Deka raised a voice against the insulting treatment by Assam Police and he was successfully silenced. Assam hence is breathing the air of a time when all voices of protests are brutally suppressed by state-machinery. The next day we read large-font headlines in Assamese newspapers that Manoj Deka was brought to Guwahati Neurological Research Centre in a critical condition. He fought with death for two days and on 4th July, 2008 he breathed his last.

According to interviewed local people as reported in the media, Manoj Deka was innocent and he was a very popular social worker. When the news of his brutal injury spread along with a rumour that he died thousands of people came out to the streets as late as 9 pm and destroyed whatever came in front of them which looked even remotely related to the establishment. They broke down the main traffic point in Morigaon, broke sign-bards and hoardings. Just to add, 9 pm at night is almost like midnight in rural Assam and small towns. This spontaneous protest by people without any flag shows that he was a people’s leader, loved equally by all. Except the Assam police of Morigaon, who works under the Congress government of Assam, lead by the Tarun Gogoi government.

After his death thousands of people came out to the streets and demanded hanging of the Officer in Charge in the Police Station under whom the counter insurgency operation was held which turned out to be ‘counter-Manoj Deka-operation’, ‘counter-a-popular-leader-operation’ and ‘counter-peoples’-operation’. Perhaps that was the chief motif of the ‘counter-insurgency operation’—to obliterate the existence of the political leader may be because he could have been the most powerful potential threat to the ruling congress party in that area.

The ruling party in Assam claims to be with the poor, the landless and the oppressed like any other government, party who meet people every five years. Manoj Deka was the leader of the poor, the oppressed and the landless.

Today, the whole of Morigaon is raising its voice against the brutal treatment of Deka without any specific reason. Perhaps, the only reason was because he protested and refused to be humiliated further. This is not only an unfortunate event in contemporary Assam but this is symbolic of the many deaths that happen in the name of counter-insurgency operations. His humiliation is symbolic of the humiliation that many young men and women of Assam go through in the name of counter–insurgency operations which turn into freedom-to-rape operation; it also becomes freedom-to-satisfy-sadistic-pleasure-operation when guys are brutally beaten, made to stand, asked to run and shot from behind, where they try to stop the construction of a posterity which also might turn into insurgents and take up arms by crushing testicles in the name of counter-insurgency-operations and interrogation. Perhaps it’s very crucial to treat the insurgents like that: to cut them in strategic places and sprinkle chillies and pepper; crush their balls; to push in pins under their nails. The idea is break them, not solve the problem. Or killing has become the norm to solve insurgency in North East. We all have grown up reading about such incidents.

A brief glance at operation Rhino against ULFA during early nineties reveals further shocking details of police and army atrocities which are major incidents of human rights violations. Every Assamese have grown old reading them, have grown up reading them and have learnt to read by reading them with effort. On 4th October, 1991, a group from the Rajput Rifles surrounded Bodhkora village in Lakhimpur district. Sleeping people were beaten up on their beds. Women were sexually harassed. All the men were taken to a nearby base camp which had a muddy stretch on the way. The villagers were asked to carry the armies on their shoulders. This group of men who carried armies on their shoulders had senior citizens and teachers among them. Throught the journey the jawans kept physically abusing their carriers. On 6th Octtober, 1991 twenty year old Raju Barua, resident of Sutargaon, Gohpur, student of Chariduwar College, was gang-raped by army jawans in the absence of family members by dragging her to a nearby jungle and her unconscious body was thrown into a pond. She died on the way to the hospital. On 16th October, 1991, a group of jawans raped fourteen year old Bhonimai Dutta in North Lakhimpur, Kuwadonga Village (Nauboisa). She died soon after she was discovered with wounds all over her body. On 24th June, 1994, five ULFA militants were killed in ‘police encounter’ in Nogaon-Karbi Anglong border, Chitolmari village. They were Hiranya Barua, Bishwajeet Barua, Rajib Basu, Putul Medhi and Hemendra Nath. Their dead bodies were not handed over to the respective families but the police decided to take care of the funereal rites themselves. In Madhupur, all the bodies were burnt together with spare rubber tyres and coal-tar. The photographs sent ripples all over Assam.

But those were days when Assam still knew how to protest. Thousands of people came out to the streets with the dead bodies of every ULFA member killed and held public funerals. When Manoj Deka was killed, things were very different and it’s unfortunate to know even why.

Actually there are so many incidents of army and police violence that it has turned into a normal truth. It’s like saying; Assam is in the northeast of India. The Brahmaputra is in Assam and is also called Tsangpoo. It’s like saying, give us vote, we will fulfill your dreams. Its like saying, this long hand of the government is with the poor, the oppressed and the landless and will work towards achieving welfare of common people and justice for all. It’s easy; it’s a truth, like killing Manoj Deka in the name of searching in a ‘counter-insurgency operation’.

Manoj Deka’s death implies that checking Manoj Deka was not the Officer in Charge’s aim. Among the hundreds of people in the busy market he chose to question Deka which has been suspected by all. Before the arrival of Kamal Bora and Rafikul Hussain, there was already another person from the police department conducting searches in that area. A powerful ‘Why’ has taken the form of thousands of voices and demands an answer. Why? Perhaps the Officer in Charge in charge didn’t like popular people. It seems it was more towards finding a pretext to take Manoj Deka to the police station thrash him and break his morals or smash his head in the electric pole till he collapses just because he protested at being humiliated. Just because in the name of searching his bag on his way back home he poured down what his wife and children were waiting to cook and eat for that evening. The officer in charge was following orders. So can we believe the orders were to kill Manoj Deka?—the powerful leader of the opposition party?

Manoj Deka’s brutal murder has lead to spontaneous uprising in Morigaon and neighbouring areas. One may wonder why it has not spread to the whole of Assam. People have become so used to fake encounters, death in police custody and police and army atrocities that they have lost the belief in democratic protests. It is the triumph of the successive governments in Assam and centre that they have been able to silence the voice of the people gradually by forcibly making the people of Assam and Northeast co-habit with death, blood, incidents that repeatedly reinforce the failure of the so-called legal democratic platforms or machinery like the way Deka’s head was smashed on the electric pole. But Morigaon is still burning and there is possibility that this fire will spread further. Tarun Gogoi’s government has lit this fire and it will burn like wild fire, like fire in staw-huts’ where the poor the landless and the hungry and the oppressed stay, has been staying and will stay forever irrespective of promises by hands and lotuses and elephants. This is an incident which shows what the ruling party wants to do other than people’s welfare, flood control and bring peace to Assam through talks. But in the process they themselves have turned into a source of terror. People are more terrified of the government than the ‘terrorists’.

Manoj Deka might become a legend. He might be turned into a myth. He may remain as the symbol of oppression and brutal treatment of residents in Assam in the name of counter-insurgency operations, searching and checking. He is also perhaps the symbolic enactment of the moral affiliations and strictures that the state is expected to adhere to when they took oaths after coming to power. But for the family with three little sons and a wife who were waiting that evening for fish, he will never come back with his bag from the market. For a long time, the xol fish was lying on the ground in the market place which he bought for his family that evening. Someone picked it up and headed towards the family but didn’t have the courage to give it to them since a traumatic situation had already lurked its head in the house after his serious injury.

There was blood and a battle for life on one side and in another there was the unannoucned initiation of the battle of his wife, his thre little sons to survive if their father won’t live anymore.