JOIN USAfter a brief lull, the monster of “caste war” raised its ugly head, when Ranveer Sena chief Brahmeshwar Singh alias Mukhiyaji was shot dead by some unidentified gunmen near his house at Ara on Friday.
Brahmeshwar, an accused in several cases of murder, including some of the worst-ever carnage Bihar had witnessed, was released from jail last year. He was reportedly on his morning stroll when miscreants pumped nearly 20 bullets into his body before escaping unchallenged at 4:30 am in Bhojpur district on Friday.
As the news of his murder spread, his supporters hit Ara’s street, smashed window panes of the New Delhi-Patna Rajdhani Express (which was then crossing Ara), burnt police vehicles and BDO’s office and damaged other government property.
Additional reinforcements, including troops of CRPF jawans, were rushed to the incident site to disperse the rampaging crowd.
By 10 am, the entire state was put on high alert while curfew was imposed on in Ara. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was in Bhagalpur for his on-going Sewa Yatra, appealed to the people to remain calm and help restore normalcy. But his appeal failed to cut much ice. Eventually, Bihar DGP Abhayanand (who belongs to the same caste as that of Brahmeshwar) was rushed from Patna to Ara.
DGP heckled
The no-nonsense top cop met the bereaved family members and tried to assuage the ruffled feathers of supporters of Brahmeshwar. In the melee, the DGP, too, was heckled by the mob, but Abhayanand kept his cool and did not use force in retaliation.
His gesture soothed frayed tempers. Good sense prevailed when senior family members of Ranveer Sena chief appealed for calm and allowed his body to be lifted for post-mortem. Later, curfew was lifted, while prohibitory orders remained in force as a precautionary measure. Widely respected among the militant upper caste (Bhumihars), Brahmeshwar in 1994 floated the Ranveer Sena, an organisation of landlords, to tackle the growing menace of peasants and naxalites, who were backed by ultra-Left party CPI (ML). The caste war, which ensued in the 90s, led to one bloodshed after another.
The worst carnage was at Laxmanpur-Bathe, in which 58 Dalits, including women and children, were massacred on December 1, 1997, by upper caste landlords near Jehanabad.
Earlier, the private militant outfit had allegedly butchered 21 dalits, including women and children, at Bathani Tola in 1996.