Don’t spare Assam’s Kasab, say victims of 2008 blasts

GUWAHATI - Two years after serial bombings in Assam killed nearly 100 people and injured around 800, victims are still seething with anger as those behind the attack are still unpunished and the compensation promised by the central government is yet to reach them.

Such is the anger of victims and their family members that they have started drawing parallels between Ranjan Daimary, chairman of the outlawed National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) who allegedly masterminded the attacks, and 26/11 terrorist Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab.

“Ranjan Daimary is Assam’s Ajmal Kasab and he should not be spared at any cost,” said an angry Dharitri Das, a mother of two who lost her husband in one of the three blasts in Guwahati.

Nine serial explosions rocked Assam Oct 30, 2008 - three each in Guwahati and Kokrajhar, two in Barpeta Road and one in Bongaigaon. The attack was blamed on NDFB, the mastermind being Daimary.

The NDFB chairman was arrested in May this year after he was handed over by Bangladesh to the Indian authorities. Daimary is now in judicial custody along with 10 other rebel leaders accused of direct involvement in the bombings and chargesheeted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probing the terror attacks.

“Hand over the NDFB terrorists to us and let us decide their fate in public. All of them should be hanged,” Naba Das, a vegetable vendor at the Ganeshguri vegetable market in Assam’s main city Guwahati, told IANS in a tone laced with anger and remorse.

Das escaped death by a whisker as he went to another corner of the market to attend to a phone call as the network signal was not very clear - the blast took place barely 20 meters away from where he was standing.

Some victims are equally angry over what they call “false promises” by the central government.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said in a statement after the blasts that compensation of Rs.1 lakh each to the kin of the deceased and Rs.50,000 each to those injured would be sanctioned from the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

Most families in the three blasts in Kokrajhar are yet to receive the money.

“It is unfortunate that promises by the prime minister were not kept,” moaned Haricharan Boro, a retired government employee who lost his wife in the Kokrajhar market blast.

Brishti Barman, a young housewife in Kokrajhar who lost her husband and is now working hard to raise her 10-year-old son, is equally distraught.

“Promises should not be made just like that,” Brishti said as tears welled up in her eyes and she prepared to observe her husband’s second death anniversary.