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United in grief, Guwahati steps in to help blast injured

http://www.morungexpress.com/regional/7125.html
Guwahati, November 4 (Agencies): United in grief and in their determination to overcome the trauma of Assam’s worst terror attack, people are queuing up outside hospitals here to donate blood and help the injured in the best way that they can. As Assam recovers from the string of 12 blasts Oct 30 - six of them here and the rest in places like Kokrajhar, Barpeta and Bongaigaon - that left 81 people dead and more than 300 injured, youngsters especially are doing all they can to express their solidarity.

“If you can’t stand up and help those who need help in times like these, then when will you ever do it?” asks Rajashree Deka, a student of Cotton College in the city.

“I was lucky to have escaped the blasts, but many others were not. In whatever way that I can, I want to help the victims. Donating blood was one of the immediate ways to do that and I did it,” she put it simply.
The Guwahati Medical College (GMC) where 134 of the injured are admitted found itself turning away more than 300 volunteers who went to donate blood as it was already well stocked.

According to Madhav Rajbonghsi, GMC deputy medical superintendent, the enthusiastic response has led to the hospital being stocked with 834 units of blood - more than its requirement.

“Right after the blasts on Thursday, there was an advertisement in the local news channels that GMC is running short of blood supply considering the amount of victims who have been brought in. Soon after, hundreds of people started pouring in, eager to donate blood and do their bit to help the needy,” Rajbongshi told IANS.

“Our requirement is 800 units of blood, but thanks to the people, we now have 834 units. We have been turning away volunteers now. Nearly 300 are still knocking our doors to donate blood.”

Rajbongshi said they had been receiving units of blood from places like Tezpur, situated nearly 200 km from Guwahati.

The volunteers include people like Rakesh Gohain, an advertising executive in the city who immediately stepped in to help when he got a forwarded message on his phone saying that there was a shortage in the blood banks.

“My heart bleeds when I see the state of the city now. But at sunset, when all the roads, the flyovers light up with candles lit by people on the road marching and condemning the blasts, I feel stronger because I know that these things can’t divide us,” he said.

Homemaker Raihana Rahman, who is still shaken by the incident, said her family was asked not to donate blood by hospital authorities since they were adequately stocked.

“However, we and many others we know have left our contact numbers with the hospital so that in need we can step in to help,” Rahman said.

Blasts leave permanent scar on peoples’ mind

Guwahati, November 4 (Agencies): The devastating blasts which have claimed 84 lives in Assam not only changed the lives of family members of the victims but has traumatised both children and adults which likely to leave a permanent scar on their minds.

Continuous visuals of the horror - charred and mangled bodies, shrieking and wailing of the injured, billowing smoke, damaged vehicles - telecast by TV channels since the day of the tragedy has numbed viewers with shock.

The October 30 blasts have come as a big stress for the people of Guwahati and most people, both victims and residents of the city, are in a state of shock, says clinical psychologist Sangita Dutta of Downtown Hospital in Guwahati.

The blast will result in two major disorders for people, particularly children. They are ‘acute stress reaction’ (ASR) and ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ (PTSD) with the former having immediate effect and the latter with long-standing permanent impact, she says.

Repeated watching of such visuals will add to the trauma resulting in lack of concentration, attention, repeated nightmares, emotional numbing and anxiety disorders particularly among children, Dutta added. “My 10-year child, an addict of the cartoon channel till the other day, has become an avid viewer of local news channels since the day of the blast and talks of nothing else but about the incident,” says Suhana Barua, a mother of two children.
Her neighbour, Prashanta Barua, points out that it is not the case with children alone and he, too, has been watching only news channels and though the repeated telecast of the scenes of horror sickens him, he can’t bring himself to switch off the television. “It happened so close to home.... I could have been at the spot and become a victim. It is this thought that keeps me awake at night and even when I manage to get some sleep, I wake up with a start and scenes of the blast haunt me,” he says.

Professor Mrinal Saikia pointed out that constant beaming of the blast scenes has “brought the devastation to our homes and we feel we were present at the sites. It is very difficult to shake off the images from our mind”. In an art competition held after the blast most of the children drew scenes of the incident with the message “We want peace”, art teacher Kishore Das says.

“Most of the children had not visited the blast sites but got the impression of the devastation from the television which is finding expression in their creativity,” he adds. The clinical psychologist said though it is necessary to telecast the visuals of the blast, it can be done in a balanced manner and repetition of disturbing shots should be avoided. “Disturbing scenes should be masked with blurred images and a warning to the viewers must be given before telecasting such scenes,” she adds.

Youngest of blast victims dies

http://www.hindu.com/2008/11/05/stories/2008110557081500.htm
Sushanta Talukdar
The 5-year-old girl celebrated her birthday recently 
Guwahati: Five-year-old Moromi (meaning Lovely in Assamese) barely started giving her final touches to a melting pot of culture that her Hindi-speaking father Sagar Sarma and Bengali-speaking mother Sunita Sarma were giving shape to, when the Sarmas gave her an Assamese name and admitted her in an Assamese medium school 10 months back. Sarma migrated from Samastipur in Bihar and married Sunita from Golokganj in lower Assam’s Dhubri district and the couple started nurturing a dream at a rented house in the city.

Tragedy strikes
The pot cracked on October 30 when a car-bomb at Ganheshguri snuffed the life out of Sarma, when the caring father, a carpenter, had come to pick Moromi up from her school. The father and daughter were proceeding to buy fish from the market across the flyover.

Sunita did not have time to mourn the demise of her husband for she desperately wanted to keep the pot from breaking down hoping to see her lovely little daughter, lying at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital, to come round soon.

Loses battle
Moromi, who sustained nearly 80 per cent of burns in the blast that also separated her from father for good, lost the battle with death on Monday night.

Sunita, who works as a part-time domestic help with three families at Hengerabari, lay unconscious at the hospital when relatives took away her daughter for burial. The little girl became the 81st and the youngest victim of the October 30 serial blasts.

Joy and despair
On Thursday, Moromi was in her school uniform when the teachers and her friends bade her goodbye and wished her a belated birthday that took place the previous day coinciding with Diwali celebration. On Monday, Moromi returned to school draped in white cloth, a scene that left the all the 15 teachers and her tiny classmates at the Dispur Government Junior Basic School, other students and their guardians shattered.

“She loved to read very much and was very inquisitive. Even at such a tender age she displayed leadership and would rush to show me as soon as she finishes writing the alphabets or the numbers…she was really a lovely girl….,” said her class teacher Nilima Kalita. She could not speak much as her voice choked and she broke down. Tears rolled down the cheeks of other teachers too, when they were awaiting arrival of Moromi’s mortal remains for a last glimpse. Everyone present there wept bitterly as the body was brought in a van.

Unanswerable question
Her classmates Kankana and Nisharani were inconsolable while her elder brother Sarat of class II, looked on helplessly looking puzzled. Sarat had his head tonsured after his father’s death. The little boy could not utter a single word but his moist eyes with a blank look asked a bigger question that no one around him had the answer - “what was the fault of my lovely little sister and our caring father?”

Grief unites Assam's blast-affected

"What can I say sister. He's my only son. What can we do," said Tarasena Rajkumar, a blast-affected.

Tarasena Rajkumar's worry now, is for her four year old daughter who was with her husband at the time of the blasts and is now battling 55 per cent burn injuries.

"My husband died, how am I going to live. And now my daughter is still to recover. What am I going to do ," said Sunita Sharma.

Most of the 118 injured persons in the blasts are in different stages of recovery in the Guwahati Medical College Hospital.

Some like Nripendra Nath still have to undergo multiple surgeries to remove shrapnels lodged in different part of his body.

"I had my first operation on my leg. Today they did my neck. Next they said they will operate on my head. They have not told me when though," said Nripendra Nath, blast victim.

While Nath will remember October 30 as his second chance in life, others like Sunita will remember it as the day she became a widow.

Shocks give way to violent protests

Guwahati, October 30 (Agencies): Numbness and shock gave way to violent protests as 13 blasts ripped through Assam, killing 40 people and injuring 200 others. Within minutes of the serial blasts, unruly mobs took to the streets in the city and attacked fire-tenders, police and official vehicles. Policemen who were busy evacuating the injured were finding it tough as the unruly mob was posing hindrance by pelting stones. They even targeted ambulances which were on the way to blast site and tried to set some of these vehicles on fire.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, one of the blast site, which opened after Diwali holidays and saw presence of large number of lawyers and litigants was silenced by a loud bang which reverberated the court premises.

The area was engulfed with dense black smoke and pieces of broken window-panes of cars, mangled remains of two-wheelers, and blood laden bodies were scattered all over the premises. People were crying for help and some were too stunned to say anything. The railings around the parking area of the court were left completely damaged and one could see hundreds of splinter marks on nearby cars, walls and trees.

Home Ministry seeks report from Assam

New Delhi, October 30 (PTI): The Union Home Ministry on Thursday sought an immediate report from the Assam government on the serial blasts in Assam. Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, who is closely monitoring the situation, spoke to Assam Chief Secretary to find out the details of the incidents, a Home Ministry spokesman said. The ministry is keeping a constant watch on the situation, he said.

Gupta has sought a detailed report from the state government on the blasts in several districts including Barpeta, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar. Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil strongly condemned the blasts. Eleven serial blasts rocked several districts of Assam, killing many people. The powerful bombs went off simultaneously shortly before noon.

Failure of intelligence agencies exposed

New Delhi, October 30 (PTI): Condemning the serial blasts in Assam, the CPI on Thursday said it had once again exposed the failure of policing and intelligence agencies as also of the Centre and the state government. “Assam is one of the sensitive states in the Northeast, having international borders and infested with insurgency. The Union Government, particularly the Home Ministry, should not treat this as one of the routine things happening in the country,” the party’s Central Secretariat said in a statement here.

Demanding stringent action to pin down the culprits, the CPI also urged the people to remain united and foil the sinister designs of the terrorists who were targetting the common people to create fear and instability in the country. It said the terror act has “once again exposed the inefficiency of our policing and intelligence agencies and also the failure of the Union and the state governments”.

Curfew imposed in Guwahati

Guwahati, October 30 (Agencies): Curfew has been imposed in Guwahati following the serial bomb blasts in the city and some other cities of Assam on Thursday morning. The Director General of Police office said that curfew has been imposed in four areas of Guwahati - Pan Bazar, Bhangagarh, Ganeshguri and Hatigaon.

Following the blasts, angry crowds clashed with police in some areas of Guwahati. Some people were injured in the clash and at one place the police even fired in the air to disperse an angry mob. The state has been rocked by 13 blasts in which at least 39 people have killed and 196 others injured. In Guwahati the blasts took place on Dispur Road, Pan Bazaar, Ganeshguri and Fancy Bazaar.

More bombs exploded in Barpeta, Kokrajhar, Bongaigoan and Tinsukia districts. The bomb at Ganeshguri was planted in a car and took place about 100 meters from Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi’s official residence. In Guwahati, the death toll stood at 16 while 98 people were injured as in Kokrajhar 11 people have been killed and 53 injured. In Barpeta 12 people have been killed and 45 others have been injured. All the blasts took place almost simultaneously at about 1130 hrs IST at crowded marketplaces.

Panic grips Assamese in Delhi

New Delhi, October 30 (Agencies): Harried people from Assam in the capital on Thursday spent some anxious moments after the synchronized blasts in the state in New Delhi as jammed telephone networks made it impossible for them to get through to their relatives back home. “I have been trying to get through to my family and relatives for a long time. As the blasts took place in the morning, everybody is out. One of the blast sites (in Guwahati) is the main market and my father has to cross it on his way to office,” said Delhi University student Rashik. His home is just behind the Fancy Bazar, where one of the bombs went off. Rashik’s apprehensions were shared by Kasturi Nath, who works in a PR firm in New Delhi. “I have been tense since morning. I have been able to talk to relatives but not to my parents. I am just keeping my fingers crossed,” Nath told IANS. “I am in constant touch with my friends here who have got their families in Assam if they could help in giving some news,” Nath added.

Govt denies intelligence failure

New Delhi, October 30 (Agencies): Denying any intelligence failure behind a series of bomb blasts in Assam on Thursday, Minister of State for Home Shakeel Ahmed said the terror attack could be linked with the communal clashes in the northeastern state this month. “No, there is no intelligence failure in this case. Even after intelligence reports, intensive policing is needed to avoid such tragedies,” said Ahmed, also a spokesman for the Congress party.

“Although we can’t say who is behind the blasts, there were communal clashes in different parts of Assam on October 3 and October 5 in which at least 57 people were killed and 2,25,000 people had to take refuge in relief camps,” he said. Without naming any organisation, he said, “Such acts of terror are the result of politics of hate that is being spread in different parts of the country.”

Conceding that it was difficult at this initial stage to say who were behind the blasts or whether it was an act of people from across the border or from within, the Minister said, “Now even those who used to blame others are found to be involved in the acts of terror.”

He was referring to the arrest of five people this month, some of whom are said to have been associated with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) or its affiliates. They were nabbed in connection with bomb blasts in Maharashtra and Gujarat on September 29.

No let up in strife torn Assam : serial blasts rocks state

http://www.morungexpress.com/regional/6769.html

Shocks give way to violent protests

Guwahati, October 30 (Agencies): Numbness and shock gave way to violent protests as 13 blasts ripped through Assam, killing 40 people and injuring 200 others. Within minutes of the serial blasts, unruly mobs took to the streets in the city and attacked fire-tenders, police and official vehicles. Policemen who were busy evacuating the injured were finding it tough as the unruly mob was posing hindrance by pelting stones. They even targeted ambulances which were on the way to blast site and tried to set some of these vehicles on fire.

The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, one of the blast site, which opened after Diwali holidays and saw presence of large number of lawyers and litigants was silenced by a loud bang which reverberated the court premises.

The area was engulfed with dense black smoke and pieces of broken window-panes of cars, mangled remains of two-wheelers, and blood laden bodies were scattered all over the premises. People were crying for help and some were too stunned to say anything. The railings around the parking area of the court were left completely damaged and one could see hundreds of splinter marks on nearby cars, walls and trees.

US condemns ‘horrific attacks’

NEW DELHI, October 30 (PTI): The United States has condemned as “horrific attacks on innocent people” the serial blasts in Assam on Thursday and extended its deepest sympathies to the families of the victims. On behalf of the US, Ambassador David C Mulford extended his deepest sympathies to families of those killed and injured in the blasts. “I send condolences to the people of India. Americans share their sorrow and outrage at these horrific attacks on innocent people,” Mulford was quoted as saying in a statement issued by the American embassy.

Pak condemns Assam blasts

Islamabad, October 30 (PTI): Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today condemned the serial bomb blasts in Assam, saying terrorism in all forms needs to be eliminated. In his message to the Indian leadership, Zardari expressed grief and sorrow at the death of innocent people in the blasts. Terrorism and extremism in all forms and manifestations need to be eradicated, he said.

In a separate message, Gilani strongly condemned the act of terrorism and offered his sympathies to the families of the dead. He expressed the Pakistan government’s “firm resolve to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations”. Gilani also “underscored the need for increased cooperation among all countries for fighting this menace effectively”.

Home Ministry seeks report from Assam

New Delhi, October 30 (PTI): The Union Home Ministry on Thursday sought an immediate report from the Assam government on the serial blasts in Assam. Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, who is closely monitoring the situation, spoke to Assam Chief Secretary to find out the details of the incidents, a Home Ministry spokesman said. The ministry is keeping a constant watch on the situation, he said.
Gupta has sought a detailed report from the state government on the blasts in several districts including Barpeta, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar. Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil strongly condemned the blasts. Eleven serial blasts rocked several districts of Assam, killing many people. The powerful bombs went off simultaneously shortly before noon.

Meghalaya put on high alert

Shillong, October 30 (UNI): Meghalaya police sounded a “high alert” following a series of bomb blasts in several districts of Assam this morning. Police said the Border Security Forces (BSF) had sealed the porous international Indo-Bangla border and its men guarding the border in the region were put on extra-alert to prevent human movement through the border.
Eleven serial blasts, including four in Guwahati, rocked several districts of Assam today, killing at least seven persons and injuring over 50 others. “All the police stations, especially on the inter-state border, with Assam, have been directed to keep extra vigil,” Inspector General of Police (Special Branch) S B Singh said here. Singh said extra precautionary measures had been put in place after fear that those involved in the serial bomb blasts might escape to Meghalaya.

“We have set up barricades along the National Highways, connecting Guwahati and Meghalaya, and our police are searching vehicles in the hunt for the bombers,” the Meghalaya police official said. Chief Minister Donkupar Roy condemned the serial blasts and said, “Terrorism would be fought tooth and nail.” Inspector General of BSF, in-charge of the Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Nagaland Frontier, P K Mishra said the frontier guards along the Indo-Bangla border had been instructed to be extra vigilant to thwart any attempt of infiltration.