A Hilly Odyssey

A journey in a ‘bulletproof’ train on one of the most dangerous rail routes

A journey in a ‘bulletproof’ train on one of the most dangerous rail routes

Breaking News: Train services on the Lumding-Badarpur section have been suspended indefinitely from Sunday (12 April) after two consecutive attacks by DHD (Jewel faction) militants. In the first attack on Friday militants fired at the Hill Queen Express killing a CRPF jawan and injuring 12 others. On Saturday around 25 heavily armed militants fired at the guard’s carriage of a goods train, killing two security officers.

It was only a few months ago when the Lumding-Badarpur sector reopened after a six-month shutdown following frequent militant attacks. This is one route where the locomotive is bulletproofed and the entire route looks like a war zone. I knew it would be no ordinary train journey when I decided to take the risk last month. Having undertaken the trip—115.5 miles through 37 tunnels and stunning bridges spanning deep gorges and ravines—once while in school, it was with a mix of excitement and apprehension that I embarked on this journey once again. And little went right from the word go.

The train from Guwahati to Lumding, scheduled to leave at 2 pm, was delayed by more than four hours. On arriving at Lumding around 11 pm, I discovered there was no retiring room available—apparently, officials at the North-East Frontier Railway headquarters at Guwahati forgot to intimate the station authorities. I suffered the night in a cramped room of a seedy hotel.

Morning came as a relief and I dashed off to the station to catch the Hill Queen Express. There’s nothing regal about this queen, though. Ten battered carriages pulled by an equally ramshackle diesel locomotive. That it moves at all is a miracle.

Boarding the metre-gauge train, one is overwhelmed by the swarm of armed personnel belonging to the Railway Protection Force, Army and Border Security Force who far outnumbered passengers. “The sector we’re going to pass through is dangerous,” Manik Naha, the locomotive driver told me after lighting a lamp and incense sticks before a portrait of goddess Durga.

Last year, a loco-pilot fell to militants’ bullets. Services resumed only after the diesel locomotives were retrofitted with bulletproof glasses and the cabin reinforced with steel plates. But that doesn’t make Naha and his assistant, Subhas Bhowmick, feel any safer. “There is no guarantee. Every time we run this route, we risk out lives”.

The insurgency is nearly two decades old in this district, once a major part of the ancient kingdom of the Dimasas. Bahim Chandra Langthasa, founder president of Jadikhe Naisho Hoson, the apex body of the Dimasa tribe, blames “continued neglect” for the formation of the Dimasa National Security Front (an armed movement for a separate state for Dimasas), in 1990. Notwithstanding its abundant natural resources, the district ranks the last in Assam in terms of industrial, economic and social development.

Following an agreement with the Assam government, leaders of the Front surrendered in 1994. But the truce was brief—a section of the Front’s leaders floated the Dima Halam Daoga (DHD) the same year. The DHD wreaked havoc in the district and neighbouring areas of Karbi-Anglong, Nagaon and Cachar, killing hundreds, abducting government officers and businessmen and carrying out large-scale extortions.

The group accepted a ceasefire in January 2003, but within months another faction led by its former chief, Jewel Garlosa, took up arms. A series of killings and attacks on crews working on two mega-projects in the district—conversion of the metre-gauge track to broad-gauge and a four-lane highway as part of the East-West corridor—followed. The mayhem continues.

No wonder then that Naha and Bhowmick are scared, the train is full of armed soldiers, and I sneaked into a coach reserved for army jawans.

As the ‘queen’ laboured up the Borail Hill range, I noticed that the lush hills have been ravaged, thanks to the two mega projects. Not a tree stands on the hills. The March winds kick up dust storms that rage throughout the day, shrouding the hills in suffocating clouds of dust.

Yes, the train passes through tunnels and the viaducts that span fearsome deep ravines, and it’s apparent that this line, which the British took 11 years and Rs 4.2 crore to complete in December 1903, is an engineering marvel. Railway engineers even today insist it has no parallel in Asia.

But the presence of heavily armed soldiers all along the route is a constant reminder of the danger that lurks around every bend and end of every tunnel. No station along the route is complete without pill boxes and soldiers patrolling the unpaved platforms.

One can read the fear and haplessness on the weather-beaten faces of most of the locals on the train and at these stations. I couldn’t find a single smiling visage around.

With little relief I finally reached Haflong station without a single bullet fired from either side. From the station an autorickshaw took me to the Circuit House. The venue was swarming with army, paramilitary and police personnel. A ‘peace meeting’, was underway. The breakaway DHD (Jewel) faction had, just the previous day, gunned down a couple of Zemi Nagas and the latter were baying for revenge. A panic-stricken district administration and security officials had invited leaders of all ethnic groups to pre-empt another round of bloody clashes.

Thirteen armed outfits of the Dimasas, Nagas, Kukis, Karbis, Hmars and Biates operate in the district of around 250,000 people. Five battalions of the Army, one battalion of the Assam Rifles, six companies of the CRPF, two battalions of the BSF, 12 companies of the state armed police and the regular police force make for the huge counter-terrorism force. But the killings continue.

While at Haflong, I managed to visit one of the designated camps approved by the government to house armed cadres of the DHD (Ceasefire group). At the camp, spread over an entire hill, two dozen cadres displayed a formidable array of AK-series rifles, bazookas, Uzi sub-machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and small arms, mostly of Chinese make.

The following day, train services on Haflong-Badarpur stretch were suspended. News of a likely Naga insurgents’ strike against Dimasa passengers spread. I was stuck in Haflong. Thankfully, the report proved wrong and train services resumed the next day. The Hill Queen Express traverses only half the hill route from Lumding to Haflong. The Haflong to Badarpur section is covered by an ordinary passenger train. Once again I parked myself in a bogie reserved for security personnel. I was not taking chances.

The train pulled out of Haflong station an hour late. Though scenic, this leg of the journey is more treacherous. Twisted wreckages of goods and passenger carriages rust along the tracks. By sunset, I was across the Barak River and in Badarpur. I then took the road to Silchar for a night halt.

For obvious reasons, I decided against taking the same train back to Guwahati. I took the more arduous but safer road journey from Silchar. From Guwahati, I went to good ol’ Shillong to calm my jangled nerves, restore my sanity and get back to life’s regular tracks.

About The Author

Jaideep Mazumdar