DARKUCHI (India): Seema Datta, a 14-year-old in India’s revolt-racked state of Assam, is still woken by nightmares of her father lying in a pool of blood outside their house, shot dead by tribal guerrillas.

Her father was gunned down in 1998 for refusing to pay protection money to rebels fighting for a separate state for Bodo tribals in the northeastern state.

Seema is not alone in her loss. Thousands of other children have lost a parent or relative in more than two decades of conflict in Assam, home to a patchwork of ethnic groups and tribes and rebellions that have cost more than 10,000 lives.

The children suffer from trauma as a result of losing their relatives, police say.

But help is at hand for children like Seema.

Last November, state police launched a programme, “Aashwas” (Reassurance), to give psychological aid to children who have lost family members in rebel-related violence, helping them to deal with their grief.

UNCLE KILLED: The need for such a programme is driven home by Mamoni Datta, 16, Seema’s sister.

The girls’ father was from the eastern state of West Bengal but spent nearly all his life in Assam. He was targeted by the Bodo rebels who say their lands are being swamped by outsiders.

One of Assam’s main rebel groups, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), operates in Nowgong, a bustling market town that is the home of Biplab Saha, 16, who struggles with tears while trying to recall the day ULFA shot his favourite uncle to death after seizing him for ransom in 2000.

Assam’s concern over the children’s trauma appears to come late partly because the industrially backward state is grappling with other massive problems.

It has an under-five mortality rate of 116 per 1,000 live births, way above India’s already dismal average of 94 per 1,000, and a primary school dropout rate of over 40 per cent.

But Deka says Aashwas is a case of better late than never.

Psychiatrist Dipesh Bhagabati, who has treated many traumatised children, agrees.—Reuters