Kati Hemram (13) and Chandan Basumatary (14) were lying on adjacent beds in the emergency ward of Tezpur Medical College & Hospital. Except for their ethnic identities, everything else about them was similar: their age, their innocence and the description of their wound – “firearm injury right upper chest [sic]”.

Kati is an Adivasi while Chandan is a Bodo. Adivasi is a collective term for tribes like Munda, Santhal, Orang and so on. They were brought to Assam by the British to work in tea gardens. Bodo is a tribe native to Assam’s western districts. The two tribes had been living amicably for decades in far-flung villages inside the forests of Assam bordering Arunachal Pradesh.

But now they are vying for each other’s blood.

Though the violence has stopped now, it would take a long time to do away with feelings of animosity and restore trust between the two communities.

It all started on December 23 when terrorists belonging to the anti-talk faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) lead by I K Songbijit open fired on Adivasis in Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts in a series of attacks at four places, according to the state administration. Soon after the carnage, Adivasis retaliated, setting off a chain reaction of violence.

Considering the extent of bloodshed, Kati and Chandan would be called lucky survivors of the madness that claimed 81 lives including 26 women and 18 infants in Sonitpur, Kokrajhar, Udalguri and Chirang districts of Assam, according to a PTI report.

Around 1.8 lakh people, both Adivasis and Bodos, were forced to leave their homes en masse and take refuge in relief camps set up in nearby schools, Anganwadis, churches and so on. Sonitpur was the worst-affected district.

One of the biggest Adivasi relief camps in Sonitpur was set up in the campus of Tinisuti High School near Bishwanath Cariali. The camp housed 3,000 people – not only from Fulbari, the village where the killings happened, but also from nearby villages since they were too scared to continue living there.

Soniram Hemram, a 22-year-old man, was probably the first person to be killed in Fulbari Village by the NDFB(S) militants. Munuk Hemram, Soniram’s father, recounts the story. On that fateful evening, militants disguised as army men got hold of Soniram and asked him to lead them to his village. Sensing something unusual in their behaviour midway, he ran screaming towards the village asking people to run for their lives. He was shot there and then.

Twenty-nine people died on the spot; including Soniram’s mother. Another girl, Lulima Baski (20) lost her entire family in this carnage except her father, who works outside Assam. Her mother (40) and three siblings were killed in cold blood. Her youngest sister was just two years old.

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The relief camp at Tinisuti High School was a busy place. Every corner had a different story, all happening simultaneously – people queuing up to get their share of ration, women cooking breakfast on their makeshift stoves carved inside the ground, children playing over a pile of donated clothes and people huddling around vehicles loaded with relief material.

The administration it seemed was handling the situation reasonably well and non-government organisations, various unions and a few political parties were also playing their part. But it was the gesture of the ordinary people of Assam that was truly remarkable and commendable. Trucks, tempos, Mahindras and Tatas were pouring in from everywhere at the camp sites loaded with relief material.

Many people took the tougher route to ground zero to ensure supplies reach people residing there. Narrow muddy roads that might not have seen more than a motorcycle or a tractor in a day were witnessing long traffic jam with SUVs and mini-trucks.

This continuous inflow of outsiders and the whole exercise of running towards a van, collecting relief material and storing it repeated through the day. This perhaps keeps people busy from grieving about the past or worrying about the grim future. When a women got a pair of small socks for her toddler, she and her friend burst into unending laughter.

In Dhekiajuli, the other site where the killings took place in Sonitpur, Hathikuli village bore the brunt of the attack. Six of its people were killed that day. If that wasn’t enough, three more died in the police firing, while protesting against the killings. People of this village along with others were camping at Shanti Bandgaon Primary school.

The school, however, wasn’t as big as the one at Tinisuti. The couple of rooms that existed in the name of a building were used to store food and other relief material. Hence the people were camping in the school ground on their cushy beds of hay under tarpaulin roofs wrapped over a bamboo skeleton.

Tala Bhingra, a member of the village committee, was also de-facto in charge of the relief camp. It was difficult to tell that he himself was a victim; he lost his daughter, Bigini Bhingra (13) in the firing.

An hour-long walk in the village with Tala showed the extent of devastation; walls impaled with bullets, charred houses, blood-stained floors. And graves. Not one or two but six graves. Despite its residents being Hindu, the tradition in the village is to bury a person if she/he dies young.

“I was decorating my house for Christmas on 23rd when I came to know about the massacre. I couldn’t celebrate after that. How could I?” said Nobul Baglari, a Hindi teacher in a private school and a resident of Bilasigudi, a Bodo village bordering Hathijuli. “IK Songbijit is not even a Bodo, what good would he or his group can do to us?” he added while criticising the act of NDFB(S).

“We don’t think about Bodoland, we think about our work that fetches us our meals,” said Lereng Bodo when asked what he thought about the legitimacy of the demand of Bodoland by NDFB(S).

The Adivasis and the Bodos came to these villages (earlier forest) almost at the same time, 15-16 years ago, and have virtually coexisted ever since. Adivasis would approach their friends in Bodo villages, relatively better educated, to sort out any accounts-related matter. They would also relish the rice-beer, a Bodo speciality.

“Those who lost their lives in the attack, I know each one of them,” said Sobin Moosahahary while stuffing a gunny bag with paddy to be transported on a bicycle. He, however, hasn’t visited his neighbours living right across the narrow unmettled road, which had suddenly become an international border, to pay his condolences. “I am too scared to go there right now,” he confessed. But not a single Bodo in these villages had fled out of fear.

However, not all Bodo villages were as lucky as Bilasigudi village. People of Bihumari Bandgaon, a village 12 Km from Bihali on the national highway, had to flee after the retaliatory attacks carried out allegedly by Adivasis in the evening of December 24, a day after the NDFB(S) firing, left four dead and two injured in the village. Chandan Basumatary, the 14-year-old boy getting treatment in Tezpur Medical College was from this village.

“The assailants belonged to Birsa (Commando Force) group which is officially in ceasefire with the government,” alleged Daneshwar Doimari, the relief camp in-charge at Padam Pukhuri village. He, however, wasn’t too sure about who attacked the Adivasis a day before; almost in a state of denial. Thankfully, the younger lot knew who and why they were attacked. They didn’t negate the idea of Bodoland but didn’t approve of the methods of NDFB(S) either.

Compared to Adivasi relief camps, the Bodo camp at Padam Pukhuri was a mini-camp with just 157 people. It was probably the only Bodo camp in Sonitpur district according to T Pator, executive magistrate and camp in-charge at Tinisuti. Despite that, hardly anybody knew about it and the donors could be counted on fingers. Unlike the Adivasi camps where ordinary people were pouring in for help, the donor list here was short and primarily comprised local NGOs and unions.

While the general public sentiment towards Bodos wasn’t very optimistic, the tremendous support the Bodo camp at Padam Pukhuri enjoyed from the host village was unparalleled. “They shall only return once the situation in their village normalises,” was the consensus reply of the host village.

On the contrary, Adivasis from Bishnupur village in Dhekiajuli living in a relief camp 5km away at government primary school at Posa Basti, were constantly asked and even pressured by the host village to vacate the school immediately as the new academic session was soon going to start. Earlier they used to get drinking water from nearby houses but that generosity soon dried up. Now they were forced to drink the yellowish water with high iron content coming out of the hand-pump at the school.

However, people were not willing to leave for their villages without adequate arrangement of their security beforehand. In one of his visits to the area, Habul Chakravarty, the Member of Legislative Assembly of Dhekiajuli promised the people that government was taking adequate steps for their safety and they could return soon. Three companies of CRPF had already been deployed, he said.

However, people were taking his promises with a pinch of salt. Not much is visible on the ground inside the villages, they complained. Of late, people of the aforementioned camps have returned after jawans of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) were deployed in their villages.

But the question is for how long would this security remain in the villages? What would happen after that? What about those villages that are equally vulnerable but were simply lucky to have escaped the carnage. The fact is, these people would continue to remain sitting ducks for NDFB(S) or any such militant groups till the time their villages have the “forest-village” status.

Being on forest land, they remain out of bounds for the local administration. Which means no roads, no electricity, no water, no schools and no police. They don’t even have an official village head who can take the concerns of the villagers to higher authorities. No Panchayat elections happen here. They are encroaches of the forest in the eyes of the government.

Now, to choose between environment and people is not going to be an easy choice for any government and evicting them from their villages after decades will have its own consequences but till this matter is sorted out, reactionary and ad hoc security measures is only going to act as a bandage on a deep wound.