At that time the superintendent of police and the deputy commissioner were having a serious discussion with the members of the cabinet sub-committee in Tezpur. Early that morning, Chaku had fallen to the Chinese. There was no resistance left between the Chinese army and the army headquarters at Tezpur. The eastern command in Kameng, Lohit and Subansiri frontier divisions had broken down. The command and control in the western sector of Ladakh had also been destroyed.

A portion of the Indian Army had already been shifted to Siliguri from Tezpur. The rest of the army was also preparing to vacate. Indian troops had started returning from Subansiri and Siang, abandoning their positions.

In the Lohit division, the process of shifting the Indian troops to Ledo had begun. From all the war zones of the eastern and western sectors of the India-China border, the humiliating and dangerous process of withdrawal without command and discipline had begun. The remote pockets of NEFA and Ladakh were strewn with the bodies of the soldiers who had died in the war or at the time of withdrawal.

The Chinese troops were only a few hundred miles away from Tezpur now. The situation in panic-stricken Tezpur was out of control; there was hardly any trace of administration.

All the shops were closed. Numerous bags filled with coins from the banks had been thrown into the Padum Pukhuri, the town’s largest pond. Huge bundles of bank notes had been burnt, so had all the important papers in the town’s government offices. In front of every office, fires were burning. The gates of the mental asylum had been thrown open; lunatics had started roaming around the town. The prison, too, was emptied out. In the midst of all this chaos, a group of people in Tezpur and its suburbs were looting houses and shops without restraint.

Suddenly, in the middle of this anarchy, Tezpur was blessed with unexpected news.

China had announced a unilateral ceasefire!

Twenty-one

Twenty-one

Opening the windows was forbidden.

Opening the doors was prohibited.

All shutters had been pulled down. All doors were closed. There was no way to find out how far they had travelled and where they were. In the early hours of the morning a mysterious train sped on. On that train was a load of prisoners of Chinese origin who had no idea where they were going.

Mei Lin was seated near a window. The packed compartment was quiet except for the sound of the moving train. No one was talking. The passengers were exhausted beyond measure. They sat in their allotted places, motionless and silent.