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Rebels trade hostages for education of girls
GUWAHATI: Terror or insurgent groups usually trade hostages for jailed members or release them after receiving ransom in cash.
GUWAHATI: Terror or insurgent groups usually trade hostages for jailed members or release them after receiving ransom in cash.
A tribal outfit in Assam has deviated from this rule to free their hostages for a promise that the education of 100 girls of the community it represents would be taken care of.
Members of the Bru National Liberation Front, representing the Bru or Reang tribe, had in the first week of July abducted forest ranger Manoj Kumar Sinha and two others in southern Assam’s Hailakandi district.
The two are residents of Badlabadli, a Muslim village close to the Mizoram border and about 360 km south of Guwahati.
The militants took their hostages to a forest on the Assam-Mizoram border, but the villagers were in a belligerent mood.
The district administration held meetings with the Muslims and Reangs and promised help but warned against “lawlessness”.
“Abductions from across the border are frequent, and we discussed the problem with the governor ( PB Acharya) when he visited the district before this incident,” Moloy Bora, Hailakandi deputy commissioner, told Hindustan Times.
The governor, he said, took the initiative for sponsoring the education of 100 Reang girls in the pattern of the Centre’s Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao campaign.
The l ocal MP, MLAs and leaders of all political parties in the district accepted the proposal.
“I communicated this to the commander of the extremist group and assured development for the Reangs. We reunited the hostages, released on July 5 evening, with members of their families,” Bora said.
The rebels, used to demand cash as ransom, were surprised by the offer.
“But we accepted in t he greater interest of our community,” a BNLF spokesperson, claiming to be S Chorky, said.
That day, Bora tweeted external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, seeking her help in bringing back the daughter of a district official detained in Istanbul airport for not possessing a transit visa.
Swaraj intervened and Aradhana Barooah, daughter of inspector of schools KK Barooah, reached Mumbai a few hours later.
