By Our Special Correspondent

'We had deposited a small amount with the post office for Barnali's marriage but it had to be withdrawn for her 'shradh' said a tearful Paritosh Sen , seated beside his disconsolate wife Jayanti and bereaved sister Animal De in his village home in Padmapur, five kms away from Dharmanagar subdivisional town. Any visitor strolling through the quet and pastoral setting of Padmapur on the edge of border with Bangladesh is geeted with visible inquisitiveness by the residents. The inevitable question that is asked is : are you going to Paritosh Babu's house , you want to know anything about Barnali? The help is forthcoming as villagers give accurate direction of Paritosh Sen's hosue in 'Senpara ' area of Padmapur. It seems that the brutal murder of Barnali Deb (10) in Guwahati's inter-state bus depot on the weird night of July 13 has made her maternal uncle more famous in a dubious way than he had ever expected to be.

Paritosh Sen (50) and his wife Ms Jayanti Sen (44), both teachers in government schools , are without a child and the rich reserve of all their parental love flowed for niece Barnali . With his shell-shocked wife lying close to Barnali's mother with blank eyes Paritosh Sen said 'none can fathom the depth of pain of childless parents but we could adjust to the reality of our lives because of Barnali. I do ot think her own parents could have loved her more'. Paritosh Babu had got his sister Anima (35) married to Mr Bishnu Deb (39) of Sipahijala village under Bishalgarh subdivision in 1984. A small trader by profession Bishnu Deb, father of slain Barnali, was hardly able to make both ends meet and helped almost on a regular basis by his brother in law. A few years back Bishnu Deb left home for greener pastures, keeping his wife and children Barnali (10) and Ajay (04) at home . Finally he settled down as a tailor in the Beupori town in Tuen Sang district of Nagaland and was able to send home a samll monthly amount for the maintenance of his wife and children. 'Bishnu was earning but still I continued to help him and my sister for the education of the children, particularly Barnali' said Paritosh Sen. In due course of time Barnali's mother Anima took a rented house at Agartala and got her admitted to the 'Hindi school' where the medium of instruction is both Hindi and English to ensure a decent education for Barnali. Before leaving with parents for Guwahati Barnali was a student of class three in the school.

Recounting the gory details culminating in Barnali's death Paritosh Babu said that his brother in law Bishnu Deb had reached Agartala in the last week of june to see the family and to take them for a visit to Beupori. He took the family to his brother in law's house on july 1st and stayed there for eleven days . 'Initially he had planned to reach Guwahati by train but the journey is not safe at least upto Lamding because of frequent crimes, so finally he decided to go by bus' Paritosh Babu said. Despite a long stretch of 25 kms of road between Karimganj and Dharmanagar being in an exremely poor shape Bishnu Babu , his wife Animal Debi and the children boarded the Guwahati bound bus on the 'inauspicious 13th july'. What happened later on in the bus-terminus is by now well known and Paritosh Babu stopped short of saying anything on the lurid happenings leading to Barnali's murder . But the eerie silence in his single-storied house in Padmapur was shattered by the tearful agony in his wife's blank eyes and the hystrical cries of Barnali's mother Animal Debi. Barnali's bereaved father Bishnu Deb had gone to Silchar on july 25 on 'some important works' but Paritosh Babu said his family was disturbed by anonymous and threatening phone calls asking them to withdraw the case registered by police in Guwahati