Kidpped man returns from militant's clutches after 16 years

FROM A Correspondent

AGARTALA, April 12: On April 11, the day when 12 militants belonging to the tiol

Liberation Front of Tripura handed over their arms to the Director General of Police (DGP), another man who was abducted by militants and spent long 16 years in their camps also returned home.

Leave apart the DGP, there was none to receive Ranjan Saha (50) when he reached his home at Shibgar area in Agartala. Rather his wife Sumitra Devi was waiting for completion of the legal procedure on her petition before the court to declare her husband dead and issue of a death certificate.

‘It was heard to believe when he knocked the doors’, said Sumitra Devi.

There was no surprise in her reaction as she had never heard of him and was totally uware about his wereabout since April 8, 2000. She only knew that her husband, a ba trader, was abducted from Takarjala area when he went to procure ba from the rural markets to sell them in the town.

Since then all her attempt to locate him went in vain. She not only lost hope, even forgot to see dream. Rest is tale of a heard struggle with three kids. Sumitre Devi even had to work as domestic help to feed her children. The days were equally tough for Ranjan Saha. “Immediately after abduction they blind folded me only to open it after few hours when it was a place totally unknown to me,” he recalls. Since then it was a long journey that was ended in one of their makeshift camp. It took several days for him to know that it was in Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh.

In the camp he had to do different kind of works like cooking, fetching water from distant places, carrying goods etc. However, he was grateful as he was never subjected to any kind of torture. The only thing totally ban for him was showing any interest about his home, family or the locality or anything beyond this camp. Only about a month ago they again blind folded him and took him to an unknown destition, unfolded his eyes only to say you are free now and you can go anywhere.

The moment he felt what freedom means and at the same time, for the first time he could realize that he developed some weak points in his hart for his abductors too with whom he spent long 16 years. Got freedom but he was totally in dark about where to go. However, he maged to reach to one person he knew at Mdhabpur near Comilla in Bangladesh. He maged to cross the border with the help of that man and some others. But it was not the end of his ordeal as his family was not in the rented house he used to stay before being abducted. It took some more time to locate them only to found that the kids he left at home has already grown up. The daughter has already got married, the elder son is serving in a private company at Kolkata and wife Sumitra was living with her younger son.It was a happy get together on Monday evening. ‘We are happy that our father has returned’, said Abhishek, the younger son.