SARBHANG

12 September, 2009 - Residents of Darjaythang of Sompangkha gewog, Sarpang, who were attacked and robbed by armed Bodo militants on August 16, have prepared themselves for any future forays. They reinstituted their village volunteer system to guard their villages and did not keep many valuable belongings and money with them.

But when the nine armed men, carrying khadwa (home made guns) and khukris, robbed another four houses of the village and injured two men in the early morning of September 10, they could not do anything but wait for the miscreants to ransack their homes and leave.

The incident occurred at 1:30 am when Nima Singh Tamang, a helper of Purna Maya Sharma, guarding the crops from wild elephants, encountered the armed men. "The miscreants asked Nima Singh to lead them to the house in Mechey, a dialect spoken by people across the border," said a Kuensel source. "But, when he resisted, they beat him with rifle butts."

The men also took Purna Maya's suitcase filled with clothes, three tolas of gold, two necklaces and a bag containing citizenship identity card and voter's photo identity card.

The men also robbed Purna Maya's neighbour, Bhaktiram Acharya, 80, of rations and vegetables and beat his son-in-law, Pushpalal Pokhrel, when he tried to escape from the back door to alert neighbours. The robbers also took away a goat and four chickens, and left at 2 am, when the former chimi informed the police about the incident.

A press release from the police stated that they informed the SSB across the border about the incident and a case of armed robbery has been registered at the Sarpang police station.

Sarpang dzongda, Kinzang Wangdi, said that the dzongkhag conducted a security coordination meeting with the gups of the seven bordering gewogs, army personnel and police. "Timing for village volunteers was changed to beef up security," he said, adding, "From now, patrolling will be done at an appropriate time."

Dzongda Kinzang Wangdi said that Darjaythang would soon receive a B-mobile tower, so that informing police about such incidents becomes easy.

This is the fourth such incident in the dzongkhag.

By Tashi Dema

source: Kuensel