Naxalites killed 16 in Bihar

Bihar is notorious for caste and naxalites killings; Nitish Kumar has
brought down the violence to a significant level. The recent killing in
Khagaria has again exposed that police in not performing upto Chief
Minister’s expectations

Left ultras have killed 16 People in

Khagaria district of Bihar on 2ndOctober
night. The scheduled castes supported by
naxalites attacked people who were asleep
in the village Ichwara in Khagaria
district, some 200 Kilometers away from
state capital Patna. The suspected maoists
who were said to be 20 in numbers
segregated the old and young and tied their
hands and legs and then fired on them with
firearms killing 16 of them on the spot.
One man who saved his life by pretending to
be dead narrated the whole gruesome story
to the police. The dead bodies were lying
for autopsy to be done and the situation on
the spot is pathetic. The helpless women
and children are weeping bitterly making
the environment very emotional. Among the
dead bodies, there are some 10-12 years
children also. Nobody understands why did
they kill these children?

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The villagers were so angry that they did
not allow deputy chief minister shushil
modi to stay and talk to the villagers. He
was hackled and forced to leave the village
instantly. The chief minister Nitish kumar
has announced ex-gratia payment of one
lakh and fifty thousand rupess to the next
of the kin killed in this dastardly act of
mayhem. The police says that land dispute
is the reason for this attack. The 200-300
bighas of gairmazarua, the government land
is said to be under the possession of the
people belonging to keori and kurmi caste.
The Mushars, a scheduled caste who are
called mahadalits now wanted to take
possession of these lands, they said that
these lands belonged to their ancestors and
farmers have fraudulently and forcefully
grabbed this when they were innocent and
helpless. There were some scuffles also few
months back which was reported to the
police, but they alleged that police in
connivance of these farmers did not take
any action. Therefore the Mushars decided
to kill them in order to teach them a
lesson, some people say on condition of
anonymity. They contacted the left ultras,
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the police says, and with the help of them,
they perpetrated this violence.
Bihar had been not witnessing such type of
massacres for quite some time and people
were taking sigh of relief that perhaps the
massacres are the incidents of past. But
this incident has again exposed that
smoulder of hatred and violence still exist
in the society. In recent years, Nitish
Kumar had earned reputation of being a good
administrator who has set the house in
order. Media houses has been flooded with
reports of improvement in law and order
situation. This incident has again raised
eyebrows of doubts and the government witll
have to leave no stone unturned to improve
the state police machinery and deal with
therse elements with iron hands.
Land reforms has taken back seat over a
decade or more. No political party, for
risk of loosing vote banks dare to touch
this contentious issue on one pretext or
the other. Nitish Kumar, just after coming
to power some three and half years ago, set
up one ‘Land Reform Commission’ under a
retired IAS officer of West Bengal cadre,
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D. Bandhopadhyay, who had earned reputation
in West Bengal for implementing some
excellent measures in that state. This
Commission has submited its recommendations
also some six months ago. The report has
been made public also. But due to setbacks
received by NDA( alliance of JD(U) and BJP)
in the recently concluded bye elections,
Nitish Kumar is not daring to implement the
recommendations. The political observers
say that recommendations like giving
statutory rights to the share-croppers,
which government said would be implemented
very soon has infuriated the farmers,
mostly upper and other backward castes.
These groups opposed this move and voted
against the NDA, the alliacnce of which
Nitish Kumar is the chief minister. Thus
this opportunity of implementation of land
reforms has also been lost. It is being
said that now onwards no political party
will even like these issues to be raised
and discussed on public forums.