An ideology can die, but not her husband. Kabita Chakroborty refuses to fear the worst when it comes to her husband, Nilu Chakroborty, a low-ranking United Liberation of Asom (ULFA) cadre member missing since the December 2003 Bhutan operations. With her husband and son, she was holed up in an ULFA camp in a Bhutan jungle for four years when the Royal Bhutanese Army, aided by the Indian Army, raided it on a wintry evening. She was captured with her son and later sent back to her parents in Nalbari.

But her husband hasn’t returned. She has petitioned the high court and written to the governor and president, but hasn’t learnt where her husband is. When she married him, she had no idea that her husband was a covert ULFA cadre member. She learnt it later. “He wanted freedom for Assam. If the government doesn’t agree, it’s okay. But they should return him to me,” she says.

What worries her most is that their only child, Kaushik is growing up. “He is seven now and keeps asking me about his papa,” Chakroborty says. She doesn’t want to tell her son her father was a “militant.” Was, or is.