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Chandrapura, March 28
Jagarnath Mahto always walked the line. His most important contribution as the two-time JMM legislator representing Dumri has been the many Janata Durbars he has presided over. He pushed the envelop at these events - caning alleged molesters and tying errant husbands to trees - while law stood on the sidelines.
Then, on the morning of March 20, someone crossed that line. A Durbar was convened outside Jagarnath's ancestral house in Chandrapura block's Alargo village to decide on the fate of resident Santosh Pandey (25), being starved for the third day. His crime: eloping with a girl from Simratoli, a hamlet of the village. One doubts whether Santosh got a chance to present his case. The verdict was death.
His captors, most of them the girl's relatives and all of them residents of Simratoli - where Jagarnath, a Kurmi which the dominant caste, also stays - surrounded Santosh and began beating him with sticks. At some point, Santosh was bundled into a car and taken to the D.V.C. Hospital in Chandrapura town. Suraj Puri, one of his alleged attackers, admitted Santosh at around 10 AM and disappeared immediately.
The Bermo sub-division reporter of regional Hindi channel Kashish News was the first to reach the hospital. After ensuring no one else was around, Santosh narrated his story: "I fell in love with a girl whom I was taking tuitions for. When I got a job in Chennai, she said she wanted to come with me. I refused, but she insisted. If she were here, she would explain it to you." He also named five people as his attackers. Jagarnath's elder brother Baidyanath Mahto was among them.
Senior Medical Officer at the hospital S. Hembrom said that he had stabilised Santosh: "We considered him out of danger after an initial examination. Nevertheless, I recommended that he be taken to a better hospital. None of his relatives were around to make that call. Later, he started developing complications. Must have been due to massive internal injuries - he was black and blue all over, after all." Santosh died an hour-and-a-half into his stay at the hospital.
Even as the youngster breathed his last, Jagarnath - now named in the FIR on Santosh's death - was in Bokaro preparing for a major leap in his political career. He secured nomination papers to contest from the Giridih Lok Sabha seat, which he would submit the next day by going to the collectorate on a bicycle. Chief Minister Hemant Soren was in Bokaro as Jagarnath submitted his nomination papers but avoided travelling with him to the collectorate. The CM met his MLA later and has since defended him staunching, calling the allegations a political conspiracy.
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Jagarnath was never someone who made friends for his niceties. It comes with the territory - coal, the politics surrounding which makes one wish that it was better if the rock stayed underground - dictates terms in Chandrapura.
In August 1985, Jagarnath was accused of murdering an individual named Dilu Mahto. An arrest warrant was issued against him in 2003, but Jagarnath remained free and even got himself elected to the state assembly in 2005 for the first time. Only when the District Judge of Bokaro pursued the matter in 2008 did Jagarnath surrender. He has since appealed against the murder charge before the Jharkhand High Court; the petition is pending.
In August 1995, the District Magistrate of Bokaro sent Jagarnath to jail after declaring him an "anti social element" and a "terror in the area." Back then, he was the Bermo block Secretary of the JMM (Mardi group) and was also a member of the Jharkhand Colliery Shramik Union. "The story here is that he had become such a nuisance that the police wanted to finish him off in an encounter. Mahto was saved only because a journalist warned him ahead of the police operation. A frustrated senior official later told someone that if he was not killed by his rivals, Mahto would become an important political leader," said an individual who has tracked Jagarnath's political life. Jagarnath went to the Patna High Court and got that 1995 order overturned, but a marker was laid down.
At some point, Jagarnath came to be called Tiger, a nom de guerre apparently even the Maoists of the area use for him. In 2000, he left the JMM to contest the assembly elections from Dumri on a Samata Party seat, but lost. Jagarnath returned to the JMM and won in 2005, a significant year for the party too. It was the first time Shibu Soren became chief minister and a coterie of relative youngsters formed around the rising Hemant Soren, who contested for the first time that year, but lost. As someone who came after Shibu Soren's generation, Jagarnath's loyalties lie with Hemant.
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Jagarnath Mahto, who is almost always seen dressed in white full-sleeved shirts, trousers and shoes, has been one of Jharkhand's most colourful legislators. It is quite an achievement, considering the pantheon he sits amongst.
Jagarnath's younger brother Ganesh Mahto was gunned down in August 2009. According to policemen, Ganesh had to die because his killers could not get to Jagarnath: the killers had constructed a petrol pump for the brothers but was not paid for it. Six were sentenced to life imprisonment on September 28, 2012. The next day, a bomb was found from near Alargo village; it was reportedly intended for Jagarnath. He has since erected a gate in memory of his brother, "Shaheed Ganesh Mahto." It stands near a similar memorial Jagarnath has constructed for JMM founder Binod Behari Mahto.
In February 2011, Jagarnath was embarrassed by a bunch of girls, who took away the keys to his SUV demanding cycles to commute to school. In September the same year, he was brought down scantily-clad dancers to Bokaro for an event in memory of Binod Behari Mahato and even danced with them.
Jagarnath remains immensely popular with people loyal to him. He earns that loyalty in strange ways, though: a supporter for the regularisation of para teachers, he threatened to immolate himself on the state assembly campus on August 19, 2011 if his demands were not met. All of his demands have not yet been met. Jagarnath lives.
In April 2013, Jagarnath arrived at Chirudih village of Nawadih block for the Bhokta festival. He bought all the balloons from a vendor, climbed up a bamboo pole, tied himself to it and threw down balloons, sweets - and according to some, money - to people below. In October the same year, the MLA made a climb of a different sort in the same block - he rode piggyback on a villager to cross a stream and save his all-whites. Jagarnath was at Bhawani and had to get to Gormara for the foundation stone-laying ceremony of a bridge connecting the villages. In November, he was back in Chirudih again, this time for the Sohrai festival: Jagarnath, the chief guest, impromptu decided to perform the ritual where one dances before a bull tied to a tree.
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The dancing and the gaiety amount to public relations. Janata Durbars are how Jagarnath enforces his writ. No one remembers when they began - certainly after Jagarnath became legislator, the individual who has observed his work from close quarters offers.
Anant Lal, Santosh's elder brother who filed the police complaint naming the legislator, said that the mob had acted on the JMM man's orders. "Baidyanath is nothing without his brother. Not a leaf moves in Alargo without the legislator knowing about it. Jagarnath was there; he ordered that my brother be killed," he claimed.
Santosh and the girl - both brahmins, but of different castes - eloped on March 12 to Chennai, where the youngster had secured a job at an automobile firm a week back. They had begun a relationship during the time Santosh, an Arts graduate who also taught at a private school, would visit her home to take tuitions for her and a cousin.
When news came through that the girl's family had found the couple, Santosh's mother hurried to the powerful men in the village. "When someone informed me that my son had been picked up, I rushed to the mukhiya, fell at his feet and pleaded with him to ensure that my son is safe," said Santosh's mother Jayanti Devi. She alleges that Santosh and Jagarnath have a history: "Two Ram Navamis back, Jagarnath did not like the way Santosh was drumming. He threatened him."
Santosh's family alleges that he was taken to the D.V.C. Hospital in the MLA's car, with one of the legislator's bodyguards travelling along. The police, which reached the hospital shortly after Santosh was admitted, failed to record a dying declaration despite the fact he was at the hospital for more than an hour.
Alarm bells should have gone off sooner - this is not the first time the Durbars have attracted criticism. The then-DGP promised action after Jagarnath caned two youngsters for the alleged sexual assault on a woman on January 11, 2014. On March 2 last year, he ordered that a man named Jitendra Choudhary be tied to a tree for an hour after his wife complained of his alcoholism. Police always excused themselves from the mess by pointing out that mere assault is not a cognisable offence - it requires a complaint, which was never made. "I warned him, even threatened him with dire consequences, if he continued in that fashion. He never listened," said an IPS officer who has served in Bokaro district.
Whether Jagarnath was even home while Santosh was being assaulted is a matter of dispute.
"This Adalat happened at the site in front of the legislator's house where they are held, but much before the time when these meetings are usual time - which is at about nine in the morning. So, there were only a handful of people present when Baidyanath Mahto presided over the meeting and declared that Santosh be beaten to death. Later, when the beatings continued, the legislator ran out of his house and ordered that the boy be rushed to the hospital," said a villager at the cremation site on the banks of the river Damodar.
Bhubaneshwar Mahto, mukhiya of Alargo, claimed that the legislator was not even home at the time of the assault. "He was in Bokaro, collecting his nomination papers. This is a conspiracy hatched by this opponents to defame him; to try and weaken his winning position this election," he said.
Jagarnath Mahto, talking over phone, said he was not in the village on the morning of Santosh's assault. "I was not at home; I was not even aware of any Jan Adalat. I can't speak for my brother. If he is guilty, he should be sent to jail," he said.
However, it is clear that Santosh's assaulters took moral authority from the violent nature of the legislator's Durbars.
Nine people, including Jagarnath and Baidyanath, were named in the FIR on the murder. All except the brothers were relatives of the girl. She was not seen in public for two days since the death and has since told reporters in Chandrapura that she was drugged by Santosh and kidnapped to Chennai. Police had arrested two of the nine accused on March 21. Four others surrendered on March 25; Baidyanath Mahto was arrested the same day. Jagarnath and another individual are the only accused at at large now.
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