The brave teens
Ratui Rabha and Ritupama Boro receive Bharat Award for Bravery, the highest official decoration for brave children in the country.
Moushumi S Bora

It was a daring act. Being two unarmed teenaged students, their valiant effort to chase two dreaded armed ULFA militants who had just gunned down one of their teachers in front of the school in broad day light, for several kilometers and manage to catch  hold of one of the ultras was  fraught with extreme danger. Still they remained undaunted.

For their courageous act, Ratui Rabha and Ritupama Boro, class IX and X standard students respectively of Pantan High Schools located near Assam-Meghalaya border about 50 kilometers away from the Assam’s capital city  Guwahati, have been selected for Bharat Award for Bravery, the highest official decoration for brave children in the country.

They received the Award from the President of India on Republic Day in New Delhi along with 15 other brave counterparts from other parts of the country. Ironically, it is for the first time that both the children have heard that such an award exists.

Ratui is the youngest son of a poor farmer Lalcharan Rabha of Dakuwapara Village under Chaygaon circle in Kamrup district of Assam. His two brothers are school dropouts and now help their father in the paddy field. The poor father could not afford their education any longer. Ritupama is born to another farmers’ family of Bijou Boro who has two daughters and another younger son, from No 2 Ratanpur Village under the same revenue circle.

Both the brave students are asked the President just two questions that reflect the disturbance in their young        minds over the prolonged insurgency and economic backwardness of the State. It may sound strange but the fact remains that their villages located barely about 50 km away from Guwahati does not have a telephone and an electric lamp post, even after five decades of independence.

“We will ask the President when these killings and counter killings will be stopped in our State where economic development has taken a back seat. Why has the government failed to far so solve these two burning problems,” they revealed before accepting the award.

Ratal and Ritupama showed exemplary courage and were hot on the trail of the ultras for several kilometers on their cycles till they managed to overpower one of the ultras, Samudra Rabha inside a forest along the inter-state boundary. A stone missile thrown by Ratal from a distance hit the militant on the head and was enough to incapacitate him who was later beaten black and blue by a group of villagers that joined the two brave children at the later half of the chase. The ultra could not get a chance to use his pistol and the live grenade in his pocket to defend himself.

The other militant, identified as Bhaiti Sangma managed to flee to neighbouring Meghalaya crossing the forest and the adjacent hill. The apprehended militant was booked under National Security Act (NSA). “As soon as I saw my teacher dying in a pool of blood, it struck me that the assailants have to be nabbed at any cost. I was completely focused on trailing the ultras and didn’t think of anything else, ” said Ratui who wants to join the Indian Army to defend the country’s frontiers.

Through their act of bravery these two teenagers showed the way for the villagers to put up a brave front before the gun toting ultras who have now found it difficult to get food and shelter in village houses. People emboldened by the spirit shown by the brave duo have mustered courage to  resist frequent attempts by   militants to harass them taking advantage of the remoteness of    the locality.

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