Odisha tribal set to come back home 30 years after he left for work | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Odisha tribal set to come back home 30 years after he left for work

Hindustan Times, Bhubaneswar | ByDebabrata Mohanty
Aug 27, 2020 06:29 PM IST

Daya Bhuyan, a Saora tribal of Abasingh village in Gajapati district, left his parents and siblings some 30 years ago after a local contractor took him and three other people for road construction work in Arunachal Pradesh sometime in the late 80s

A 65-year-old tribal of Odisha who had left his home more than three decades ago in search of livelihood would come back to his village in Gajapati district on Friday after a man in Arunachal Pradesh made efforts to unite him with his family through social media.

Daya Bhuyan, the Odisha tribal who is set to go back home. (HT Photo)
Daya Bhuyan, the Odisha tribal who is set to go back home. (HT Photo)

Daya Bhuyan, a Saora tribal of Abasingh village in Gajapati district, left his parents and siblings some 30 years ago after a local contractor took him and three other people for road construction work in Arunachal Pradesh sometime in the late 80s. As per his family members, Bhuyan worked there for sometime, but could not return even as the company wound up its work. Left stranded in Ziro valley of Lower Subansiri district in Arunachal Pradesh for decades, it is still not clear whether Bhuyan made any efforts to come back home or how he spent his years away from home.

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But his ordeal came to an end after a 32-year-old educational entrepreneur of Arunachal Pradesh started an online campaign to get him back to his home late last month. Rubu Ama, who owns the Royal Blue Pine school in Ziro area of Arunachal Pradesh, used social media to bounce around the details of Bhuyan around the virtual world so that somebody could get his family details for facilitating his return to Odisha.

“Though I first met him in 2003, I never asked about his native place. He used to live in a makeshift hut of bamboo and tarpaulin near a hill deep in forest, some 7 km away from the main road and used to sell firewood for survival. He hardly spoke when I first met him,” said Ama over the phone from Ziro.

Ama who used to meet Bhuyan everytime he passed by the hillside however did not attach much importance till last year when the latter’s health condition worsened. A concerned Ama asked the taciturn Bhuyan about his family, his home. However, Bhuyan did not reveal his real name and identified himself as Jagpati Karji, using another tribal surname popular in Gajapati district. He gave his father’s name as Duja Karji, mother’s name as Sukumati and elder brother’s name as Monmari Karji and younger brother as Suku Karji. He also gave false names of his parents as well as his other family members. However, he gave the correct name of his village - Abarsingh in Gajapati district.

Ama then sent the details of Bhuyan to his driver, an Odia boy, who then put it out in the WhatsApp group of Odia community of Arunachal Pradesh. But it just died among hundreds of forwarded WhatsApp messages.

Last month, when the Arunachal man met Bhuyan again, he made a short video clip of his place in the forest and then posted the details in a local WhatsApp group which was picked up by a journalist of Gajapati district who worked for a popular web portal. The reporter met Bhuyan’s brother and after some digging found that Jagapati Karji’s real name was Daya Bhuyan.

When Ama learnt about Bhuyan’s real name he again went to meet him at the forest. “I asked him why he did not reveal his real name, but he kept on insisting that his name is Jagapati Karji. He said his mother died when he was very young. When shown the photos and videos sent by the Odisha journalist, at first he could not recognise his younger brother and elder sister. He said he did not know them. But I told him that they are his siblings. After sometime, he again asked me where I got those videos and photos. I told him I got it from his place and asked him to identify his family members by their real names so that I could send him back,” said Ama.

But Bhuyan was insistent that he would not go back to his native village. “He was worried about questions from his fellow villagers about coming back without any money despite his long stay in a faraway place. He said he can’t face so many questions. He however said he might think of going there in March next year. But I told him March was too far away and he would be sent when I have more more information. But he was insistent on not going back,” said Ama, who travelled to the hut of Bhuyan on August 8 and brought him to his own home where he again made the tribal man speak to his family through video call.

Odisha BJP leader Bhrigu Buxipatra, who also helped Bhuyan get back to Odisha, said when he heard about the news, he called an RSS contact in Arunachal Pradesh, who got in touch with an Odia professor living in Itanagar. But when the professor got Bhuyan to speak to his nephew and brothers through video call, he could not recognise anyone. “He however asked about his elder brother, who is no longer alive. His village people as well as his brother asked him to come back,” said Buxipatra.

The Gajapati district administration meanwhile got involved and sent his nephew and a labour official to get him back. On Tuesday, the Lower Subansiri district administration of Arunachal Pradesh handed him over to the Assistant Labour Officer of Gajapati in the presence of Ama and other members who actively took part in the online campaign at Gumto police check gate on the borders of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. As he did not have any ID card such as Aadhaar, Voter ID or ration card, an identity document was swiftly made for his travel. Bhuyan along with his nephew flew to Kolkata and were supposed to land in Bhubaneswar today, but were stranded due to the lockdown in Kolkata.

But before he could come back, Bhuyan had almost died as he fell sick on August 13 and had to be admitted to a local hospital in Ziro for 6 days. “I thought he would die. As he had no one with him, I stayed with him in the hospital for 6 days till he was discharged. I thought him to be my own. I can say he is my close friend,” said Ama.

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