Maynama (Dhalai), April 20: Preparations for the Bijhu festival in Maynama reminded Binoti Chakma and her two children, Kishore and Swapna, of life back home, which they had been forced to leave behind.

The three-day Bijhu festival, spread over the last day of the outgoing year and the first two days of the new one, has traditionally been the major social festival of the Chakma tribe. From their original home in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh through the insecurity of Tripura to the positively hostile environs of Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh — Chakmas have never failed to celebrate Bijhu.

“We would also have actively participated but it is not possible here in our camps; we have hardly anything to live on,” said Binoti.

Settled for the past two-and-half decades in Paisyarampara village, 14 km from Maynama under Chhawmanu police station of Dhalai district, Binoti had a more or less contented life with husband Gunachitra Chakma and two children.

But their world was shattered on the night of March 11 when her husband was shot dead by NLFT militants. “We Chakmas have never supported militancy and the NLFT targeted the 13 families in our village for this. They gangraped six women, shot dead my husband and brutally beat up all the menfolk,” said Binoti.

All 13 Chakma families left Paisyarampara the next day and took shelter in market sheds and corridors of Chhawmanu market near the block offices. But Binoti and her children headed for Mayanama, six km from Chhawmanu, because she had acquaintances there. But they could render little help, being poverty-stricken themselves.

During the past decade, Chhawamanu, located 25 km south of the Assam-Agartala National Highway from Manu in Dhalai district, had been fraught with the fear of killing.