An encounter with a surrendered terrorist

t was an evening, we were very happy because the final exam of engineering was finally over and we were now almost sure that we were now engineers after a hassle of four long years. That day everybody was overjoyed. We had permissions from our homes to return late as we were now graduates waiting for our results to come. We had our tea in our favorite biswajit da's stall and were with our regular gossip, on future plans and some were thinking on higher education like me, some had business plans and some were keen to join the companies they were placed in.

We were discussing on all topics like sports, some people were imitating teachers in their unique styles, like there was one teacher who always pronounced "YES" as "Yassss". Then suddenly somehow we shifted to politics and then terrorism. We all had in mind that a terrorist is a bad person, he is a man with no humanity left inside him, he is a sadist and a maniac person who is born to kill others without reason, one who wants to induce fear in others to prove his point.

A man in his mid forties was quietly listening to our conversation, as biswajit da's stall was outside our college so we were not his only loyal customers. The man suddenly added politely "can I say something friends". We did not want him to speak but out of courtesy replied in affirmative and he continued..he spoke "You people are speaking of terrorist from your perspective friends but have any one of you ever imagined why a person becomes a terrorist and why a man who wants to lead a happy life suddenly picks up an AK-47 in his hand and kills all who comes in his way..."we had no answer. We were all now waiting for answers, probably thinking that this man may be a journalist or a Psychiatrist who is researching on terrorist's mind but we never thought that that man was a terrorist....He said then" If you have some patient time to listen I will tell you my story.....(with a pause)I was once a wanted but now I have surrendered, I have a job now as a security in-charge in a nearby company. But I was not this before. I was an engineering student at Jalpaiguri Govt. Engineering college. I had a plan to build the world's tallest building and be known as one of the greatest civil engineers but destiny had different plans for me. My father was a semi -educated man in the village. He had a poultry business. I was the first student to get into engineering so people were respecting my family. My elder sister was very beautiful and was heartthrob of several boys in the village. My younger brother wanted to be a doctor. I had an elder brother also who was married and had a wonderful daughter who always went on talking like a parrot when I went home. We all were happy. One day I read in the newspaper that the police killed 2 terrorists, one of them being my elder brother. Everything changed since then...(we were now interested in him) and asked him to continue and he carried on....

I was called home the next day and found my sister in law in white saree, my brother had not come to the station, my dad was paralyzed in shock, my sister and others crying when I went home to see, my younger bro had given me a telegram in my hostel. Then I was called by police and they told me that my brother had tried to kill a local political leader. They said me not to complain as this would do more bad to my family but I know my brother, the man who sacrificed his study after class eight to fund my education could not be a killer, he never killed a mosquito and they were blaming him that he killed 4 men who were guarding the leader's house. I returned home and my sister came to me her eyes were wet and she told me that the leader's younger brother wanted to marry her, bhaiiya (my brother) said no and so he was killed and then I decided to make some arrangements and move my family out of that place, within a week a neighbor send me a telegram that police had killed my younger brother too branding him a terrorist and my sister had gone missing my parents were burnt alive inside our house. I told the police they had nothing. I was searching for my sister and had nobody to help me, except the local terrorist groups. The village headman, the Panchayat all were against me and were trying to convince me that my family was full of anti-socials. Some even spoke that my sister's character was not good.

I had no choice. I joined the terrorist groups in the jungles and got trained because it was they who understood. As a common man you never faced something like this so you will not feel it in this city but we face this in the interiors where we are oppressed every time and every moment. I took up arms my engineering skills were till second year only and I killed the leader who destroyed my family totally. If you look legally I am a criminal but I killed a criminal. I had killed some of the people who have deprived people like my family, who have not allowed a section of people to develop so that they can get votes and fill their pockets. I have killed such men and if you think I am a terrorist I am. I killed the policeman for branding my brother's as a threat to the society and not taking any action against the real terrorists. For this if I am wrong I am proud of myself that I have acted against law, because law is only for the rich men who can hire famous lawyers who are expert in tampering the constitution........"

By now we had realized that a terrorist is made because he is deprived of his rights and we asked him to continue.........

He continues," One day I was satisfied and after 10 years with arms, I decided to surrender. I am sure if I never surrendered they could have never caught me because this police system is so backdated and the policemen whom the common men expect to support them are helpless and a part of them are puppets in the hands of anti-socials and politicians. I surrendered. I was sentenced for 14 years and I remained in jail. I came out and I got a job in a security agency, the jailer in my jail helped me get the job............

If the system works systematically friends, if all get equal education, if all get proper facilities, there will be no terrorism. I know what I did was not correct but the law department did not help me and that is the reason why I had to do what the law department should have done..."

We listened to him and clapped and then we all left he also disappeared in the huge population of my city, I began thinking if this stranger was a terrorist then we created him because we never thought of him, we never cared for him.......the people who were supposed to protect him cheated him........and he probably did the right thing......

I began to think as I boarded the bus towards home that the man we met today, was he really a criminal, because he killed the men who were already criminals, if a soldier kills an innocent soldier in the battlefield he is awarded for it, but if a common man kills somebody who has ruined his life, if a common man lifts arms because he gets frustrated of the law and order and the systems and the corruption prevailing in his country........and finally rises with arms to sweep it with arms in his hands....He is branded as a terrorist and killed. Why??

I was traveling in the bus and I heard my mother say that it is 11am in thee morning and I was sleeping, I called up one of my closest friends who was present in that day and asked her about the stranger she said there was no such stranger and we came back home after some chitchat, but I don't know why the surrendered terrorist choose me in my dreams to tell his story.........

But I now believe that if we all realize that we are all humans and control our growth and develop a strong bonding towards each other, the world will be a better place to live.........one day if this happens probably we will not need soldiers and we will not need terrorists...