Chain Of Corpses

The latest bout of violence was the worst since the December 1, 1997, carnage of 61 Dalits at Laxmanpur-Bathe, which was also carried out by the Ranvir Sena. The immediate provocation now was the incident at Sanda a few days ago when mcc activists gunned down mukhiya Nawal Singh and his son. Nawal Singh was on the mcc hit-list ever since the 1991 Mein Bersimha massacre, in which half-a-dozen members of the Scheduled Caste community were mowed down by the Savarn Liberation Front - Nawal Singh was its chief.

Thus began a chain reaction of violence. The Rukhsagar Bigha attack came after Nawal Singh was killed; and two days later, the promised reprisal came: a CPI(ML) squad gunned down a former pramukh of Arwal and a CPI man, Bageshwari Sharma, and his son at Kharia village near Gaya. Sharma was on the hit-list of the extremists as they suspected him to be a Ranvir Sena sympathiser.

Rukhsagar Bigha is five km off Laxmanpur-Bathe and barely 60 km from state capital Patna, and the Opposition was quick to point out that chief minister Rabri Devi hadn't responded to ground intelligence. Local press had been full of open threats of a massacre by Ranvir Sena bosses. Says leader of the Opposition Sushil Modi (BJP): It is not a land-related killing but a mindless massacre, so that the ruling party can gain political mileage. The rjd counters this argument by pointing out that the Ranvir Sena is being patronised by the BJP.

This is how it played out: about 100 armed Ranvir Sena activists ringed the Harijans of Rukhsagar Bigha at 8.30 pm while they were asleep and began shooting. Even women and children were not spared. The mayhem lasted one-and-a-half hours, and though the village is just 2 km from the local thana, no policemen ventured near the spot.

So angry were the villagers that they prevented senior Bihar officials from taking the bodies for cremation demanding that Rabri visit the site. And when the chief minister with husband Laloo Prasad Yadav in tow visited the spot, they were in for a surprise. The 'messiah' of the poor was greeted with slogans - Laloo Yadav sharm karo - and the irate villagers also demanded the resignation of the chief minister and asked her why the government had failed to arrest the Ranvir Sena chief, Barmeshwar Singh.

On January 9, Barmeshwar Singh had openly declared that the Ranvir Sena was planning a massacre bigger than the Laxmanpur-Bathe incident and yet no action was taken against him. Besides Barmeshwar Singh, who hails from Sandesh village of Bhojpur district, the Ranvir Sena is controlled by Samsher Bahadur Singh of Buxar district. Ever since the Ranvir Sena was formed on January 22, 1995, ostensibly to counter the Naxalite movement in the state, it has led several operations against Dalits, taking at least 183 lives. They have killed people whore not even our supporters, and have created a reign of terror, says CPI(ML)'s state committee member Santosh Sahar.

AT Rukhsagar Bigha, there is a pall of gloom and palpable anger with the administration. Sohajhari, 17, managed to escape, but lost her entire family, including her six-month-old baby. Jagmohan Sahu's family, including his wife and two teenaged daughters, were butchered. Tapeshwari and her only child are lucky to be alive but are still in a state of shock. We just cannot understand why they wanted to kill us, is all she can say.

In the meantime, one of the survivors, Prakash Rajbanshi, has lodged an FIR at the Mehandia police station in which he accused 24 persons, all hailing from the nearby village of Dhobiaghat. Speaking to Outlook, DIG Magadh range S.K. Bhardwaj admitted that Rukhsagar Bigha was an island of peace in Jehanabad. There was no land-related tension; he even ruled out the possibility that the villagers had any connection with the ultra Left organisation. Another senior police officer said a collective fine would be slapped on the residents of Dhobiaghat in connection with the massacre - a curious decision to say the least.

Sources close to the Ranvir Sena say it had decided to kill all the Dalits of the village, numbering 70, but due to the arrival of a large number of villagers from Bhobai village, the task could not be accomplished. Though the police has arrested some of the key accused, the mastermind of the killing squad, Babban Singh, is still at large.

Rabri Devi, meanwhile, cornered by the rash of protests, announced that a special court would be set up to try the accused and dispose of the cases within six months. The government has also announced Rs 1.4 lakh each to the dependents of the victims, besides a government job and a pucca house. But says Deonandan Paswan, who witnessed the massacre from a haystack: The government always announces such largesse after every carnage, but rarely has anyone got even a single rupee. So what guarantee is there that they will give us the amount this time?

President Narayanan led the way in condemning the incident. The killers of innocent men, women and children must be brought quickly to justice, he said in a message. The National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the chief secretary and the director-general of the police asking them to submit a report on the massacre within two weeks. Congress president Sonia Gandhi despatched a fact-finding team, comprising former Lok Sabha speaker Shivraj Patil and party general secretary Meira Kumar. Meanwhile, the CPI(ML) has called a Bihar bandh on January 30; the BJP has also given a strike call on February 2, while upping the ante against the Rabri Devi government.

After the Jehanabad massacre, the political atmosphere is surcharged as Opposition parties have once again raised the bogey of President's rule. Governor S.S. Bhandari will also send a report to the Centre. Laloo is impervious to such demands: Yeh sab Opposition walon ki chhaal hai ki narsanhar karao aur Rashtrapati shashan ki mang karo (this is an Opposition ploy to seek Central rule)...they wont be successful. As for the victims, they say they are tired of political games, and only hope for some justice.