A picture of Adhikary: from the police file

Jalpaiguri, Sept. 13: The last time the mother saw his eldest son was more than five years ago. At that time, Jaydev Roy was just another unemployed youth from the bandooks of Jalpaiguri, who had nothing to do with militancy.

“He had told me he was going to his friend’s house in Dhupguri and would return in two days. He never did,” mother Swarnabala Roy said.

Five years later, the mother heard about his “missing” son from the police. “I could not believe my ears when they told me my son is a militant. I still don’t,” she said.

Unknown to the mother, Jaydev Roy had transformed into Tom Adhikary during his absence from home, the wanted action squad chief of the Kamtapuri Liberation Organisation, who is widely known by his pseudonym here.

Police said Adhikary had led the August 17 attack on the CPM office in Dhupguri, in which five party workers had died. But the mother still cannot believe it.

“Let the police get him in a militant hideout and then bring his body to me. Otherwise, I will not be believe he is a KLO militant,” said Swarnabala, who is in her sixties.

She was suspicious when a reporter knocked on her door in Fataktari village under the Nathua panchayat area, about 15 km from Dhupguri. She said no one had visited her in the last one month except policemen, sometimes in plain clothes. After much prodding, Swarnabala opened up.

After failing BA exams, the mother said, her son did not wanted to go on with his studies. “Both his father and I had tried to persuade him, but failed,” she added.

His father had given him Rs 3,000 to set him up for life. “Jaydev started trading in beetel nuts, but the business never took off,” Swarnabala said.

When the frustrated youth joined the Kamtapuri movement, his father scolded him. “We did not want him to carry on with the agitation against the government. We had repeatedly told him he was going off course, but he would not listen,” she said.

One day five years ago, Adhikary left home. The mother said they had looked all over the district for him, but without success.

“He has never come to us in the last five years, has never contacted us. We don’t know whether he is dead or alive,’’ she said, her eyes welling up.

Before leaving home, the would-be militant had taken care to take along his personal belongings, including his school certificates. “We don’t even have a photograph of his. He has taken away everything,” the mother said.

Tom’s two brothers, studying at Dhupguri College and at North Bengal University, find it hard to accept that their dada is a wanted criminal. “Dada was always calm and easy-going,” brother Sasanka said. “How could he be called a militant?”