Only Jha-Pa in Lapa: the PLFI now has a political footprint

This was published, edited, here.

Rosalia - foreground - sitting outside the polling booth in Lapa.

Rosalia Barla (69) walked around the campus of the R.C. Primary Middle School in Khunti district's Lapa, beaming.

"They say Lapa is home to criminals. To them I say, Jharkhand is full of criminals. If criminals lived in my village, would we have such a peaceful election?" she said outside the school, booth number 18 within Torpa assembly constituency as the number of votes polled shot up to 132 in the third hour at 10.10 AM, from 11 and 70 each in the first two. The booth in Lapa, within Karra block, had 1047 registered voters from the village's five hamlets.

Even Rosalia - a resident of Lapa's Sarnatoli hamlet in which the school is located and who is also the president of Barkaspur panchayat - would not easily admit to the existence of the forces that have helped Lapa help pretend peace existed on Tuesday morning.

As it turned out, the village's most famous product had visited the previous night. "Dinesh told me to vote for the Jha-Pa candidate. I told him Jha-Pa would merely go and support a larger party and that we should support one of the two national parties. He just repeated that we have to vote for Jha-Pa," said an individual who claimed to have met with Dinesh Gope on Monday night.

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Dinesh Gope is the supremo of the People's Liberation Front of India, the largest left wing extremist splinter group in Jharkhand. Gope was born in the Morhatoli hamlet of Lapa. At times during this year, the PLFI was so virulent that it exceeded the CPI-Maoist in terms of violent incidents. The organisation, which has of late become all about the collection of protection money from individuals and enterprises, is often blamed to be the primary reason why Jharkhand has topped the country in LWE-related incidents in 2012: PLFI rarely fights the security forces and instead prefers to mostly kill civilians alleging them to be police informers. The PLFI is active mainly in the South Chotanagpur division - Khunti, Simdega, Gumla, Ranchi and Lohardaga districts.

The PLFI, which supported its former Zonal Commander Paulus Surin's successful bid from jail to be the Torpa MLA in 2009 on a JMM ticket, has abandoned him this time. Gope was reportedly angry with Surin's inability to successfully lobby the Hemant Soren government to lift a police picket outside a school owned by him. The PLFI has instead supported Jharkhand Party - Jha-Pa to villagers - candidate Suman Bhengra in Torpa. This will only raise the blood pressure of Surin, who never camped in Torpa during his tenure, instead preferring to travel all the way to his quarters within the state assembly campus each night.

The PLFI's support to Jha-Pa only raises suspicion that the party has now become a proxy for the extremist organisation. This should eventually lead to questions about its legality - Jha-Pa chief Anosh Ekka and MLA of Simdega district's Kolebira is currently in jail for a murder he allegedly ordered the PLFI to commit. Ekka, a former minister who is also a candidate, has long been suspected to be the main source of funding and political power to the PLFI. Ekka has also nominated his wife Menon Ekka to the Simdega constituency. Those who have heard the police's recording of tapped conversations between Ekka and PLFI area commander Vikram Gope claim Gope - and his bosses were reluctant to murder para-teacher Manoj Kumar, but had to carry it out on Ekka's insistence.

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Only the Jha-Pa managed to campaign within Lapa: this newspaper spotted a single cloth-banner featuring Ekka's picture on a tree in the village. "The Congress tried to come in, but some boys from the sangathan [PLFI] threatened them en route and turned them away," said a villager. Lapa is located on the border of Karra and is at the intersection of Ranchi's Lapung, Khunti's Torpa and Gumla's Kamdara, which makes it a tough spot to police. Across the river that runs along Bakaspur panchayat is Kamdara's Banpur, where the PLFI allegedly killed seven people on November 3. Gope was reportedly present for the massacre.

Rosalia was a government teacher and anganwadi sevika before she was elected unopposed. She does not deny the PLFI had a hand in it. "They insisted that I should be the mukhiya. I declined, but they kept coming back. I was scared, I even told the police station incharge that I would not contest," she said. Later, the police named her in an FIR along with multiple local self-government representatives for being allegedly PLFI supporters. The case against her has since been dropped. "I finally told the party that I will leave my good job and contest if they made sure I was elected unopposed. I didn't want to be the laughing stock of the village at this old age," she said.

On Tuesday, Lapa did not have the booth agents of any party: it would have been wasteful, because the villagers had already been told whom to vote for. The village received electricity only in November: they thank outgoing legislator Paulus Surin for it. Youngsters were conspicuous by their absence in the queue outside the booth. "A large number of villagers are out of the state, working as labourers. My son in working in someone's farm in Punjab," said Barla, who lost another son to migration: "He died the same day he arrived in Goa to work at a seafood-processing factory. They could not even send back his body."

Barla insists she does not support the PLFI. "I will not even contest in the next panchayat elections. I admit I have not been able to bring vikas to this village; I am taking solace in the fact that I managed to get 25 ration cards issued in my panchayat," she said. An individual who is familiar with the governance of the panchayat said the PLFI demands anywhere between 5-10 percent "levy" on every expense. "We don't even have shops in Lapa. The party asks for money even from them. The panchayat representatives are afraid to be corrupt for one major reason - if the party hears they take money, they will demand cuts from them, too," said the villager.

Barla refused to talk about how the PLFI interferes in local administration. However, she chuckled when she talked about how she managed once to convince Gope to do the right thing. "His boys were taking supplies away from our four public distribution shops. I managed to meet Dinesh and pleaded with him not to trouble the poor villagers. They stopped," she said.

Despite all this, Gope - a Yadav - retains the support of a large number of people in his village. "He took up a gun to resist the Rajputs of Barkatoli [one of the five hamlets of Lapa]. The Rajputs were troubling our girls, stealing our things and looking down on us. Now, they are scared," said the villager who refused to be named for this story.

PLFI likes Anosh Ekka, threatens Dayamani Barla

Khunti, April 14

Instead of corruption, the Aam Aadmi Party in Jharkhand has found itself tackling a new enemy while attempting to mount an electoral challenge in the Khunti Lok Sabha constituency: the most dangerous left wing extremist organisation in the state.

AAP's Khunti candidate Dayamani Barla has registered two FIRs and written to the Election Commission after alleged cadres of the People's Liberation Front of India threatened and attacked her supporters. Barla's complaint alleges that the PLFI men asked her cadre to campaign for former state minister Anosh Ekka instead.

The PLFI, which has its origins in Khunti district's Torpa block, is now the most dangerous LWE organisation in the state in terms of incidents: they account for around 36 per cent of them. In comparison, the CPI-Maoist causes only about 34 per cent. With presence mostly in Khunti, Gumla and Simdega districts, the PLFI is considered the major reason why 120 of 150 LWE-related deaths in Jharkhand in 2013 - both national highs - were of civilians.

Barla said that the two attacks were on April 6 and 9 respectively. "At about 4 PM on April 9, six of my supporters and a driver were campaigning at Biguadag village within Karra block. Six armed people reached there in two motorcycles and beat the driver with the butt of a rifle. Meanwhile, everyone's mobile phones were taken away. One of the attackers had snatched away their mobile phones by then," she said. Barla, an adivasi land rights' activist, is up against seven-time BJP MP Kariya Munda apart from the Jharkhand Party's Ekka.

The AAP candidate said that her supporters were asked to campaign for Anosh Ekka, a minister in the Madhu Koda cabinet who faces - among others - cases on disproportionate assets. "One of the men claimed that he was a Zonal Commander of the PLFI. My supporters were made to hold their ears [as if in apology] and say that they would stop campaigning for me and do so only for Ekka. After that, they were told to leave the village, leaving one of the two women in the group back," said Barla.

The woman who was left back could have been killed if it were not for the police, according to Barla. "The held a revolver close to her and asked her to go around the village, touching the feet of people and asking for votes for Anosh Ekka. The police got there by the time she was doing it a third time," she said.

The first threat was on April 6 in Arki block's Birbanki, though AAP activists were not sure whether it was the PLFI. Around three in the afternoon, seven AAP activists were stopped by armed men on motorbikes, who took away their car keys, telling them they would be back within half an hour. When no on returned till seven in the evening, the men split up and escaped on foot, reaching safety by walking all night. Barla says the first signs of trouble came on the day she submitted her nomination papers, when some people tried to stop her supporters from reaching the district headquarters. "Someone also threatened that Jabda village in Karra would be set on fire because my supporters are from there," said Barla.

The AAP activists have not taken the threats lying down, though. "Some of our activists dared to go into Lepa, [PLFI's Supreme Commander] Dinesh Gope's village in Torpa and handed his chachi a pamphlet. We also went into Rania [where the PLFI is known to have held training camps] and nailed pamphlets to walls," said Vinay Bhat, a 30-year-old who has taken a three-month sabbatical from his job as a management consultant in the US to assist Barla's campaign.

The police offered Barla a security cover, which she turned down. "The PLFI men clicked my supporters' pictures on their mobile phones, so we are really worried about what happens when the elections are done," said Barla.

Barla, a former journalist with the Prabhat Khabar newspaper, still operates a tea shop on Ranchi city's Club Road. Two of her most biggest agitations were located within Khunti's Torpa block - the one against the Koel-Karo dam during which eight adivasis were shot dead on February 2, 2001 and against an ArcelorMittal steel plant that would have displaced people in 40 villages. "Back then too, there were threats. However, we did not really know whether it was the politicians of the area who wanted these projects or the extremists who were responsible," she said.

Anis Gupta, Khunti's Superintendent of Police said that the FIRs were being investigated. "There are no names in the April 6 case but we are trying to identify the six men responsible for the April 9 attack," he said.

Khunti has a significant adivasi Christian population, but they broadly fall into two denominations - the Gossner Evangelical Lutheran and Roman Catholic. Anosh Ekka hopes that the two will come together to help him make a stand against the BJP candidate. However, there is a feeling that some of the Catholic votes could go Barla's way.

BJP banking on Ram Navami history for Hazaribagh win

The float by Panch Mandir Committee
that had an electoral subtext

Published here
Hazaribagh, April 10

Mounted on the back of the truck were three male plaster of Paris figures. Sitting in the middle, one resembling Narendra Modi. To his right sat a silver-haired man and pinned on to the left breast pocket of his jacket, a metal lotus - the election symbol of the BJP. To Modi's left sat a younger man clutching a file titled, "Hazaribagh ka vikas." The song from an accompanying second truck metions defeating Pakistan. This is followed by the sound of automatic gunfire and shouts of "Jai Shri Ram!"

On the night of April 9, as Hazaribagh wound itself like a coil to celebrate the second of its three-night Ram Navami celebrations - bigger than Ayodhya's even, as the mahant of the city's most important akhara told me - the Sangh Parivar was hoping that the renewed spirit of Hindu unity would carry the BJP's candidate over the line.

The BJP candidate in Hazaribagh is Jayant Sinha, son of the constituency's outgoing MP and former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha. Even Jayant would admit that his campaign was off to a less-than-ideal start. "It was not a lack of momentum; more like an adjustment. It took us about a week to reassure workers that I was selected on my own merits and not because of my father," he said, insisting that his campaign will be a successful one and that there is no connection between it and the Ram Navami.

Not everyone agrees. "Politics and this festival have always had a relationship. It will continue to be so," said Tunu Gope, district President of the BJP. Gope's proposal to have a Narendra Modi rally on April 10, when the Ram Navami procession is at its peak and communal tension runs high, was the biggest giveaway that the BJP intended to use the festival as a battlecry to unite Hindus. It was scrapped, the ostensible reason being that a block of Hazaribagh district votes with Koderma on April 10. Hazaribagh constituency was supposed to vote on April 10 as per the initial schedule, but it was postponed to April 17 after reminders about the Ram Navami festival.

This youngster was selling pamphlets for the "NaMo number."
The BJP was the only visible political party at the procession.

 "I faxed Rajnathji and Modiji saying it would be a bad idea to have the rally on the 10th. People would be busy with the procession; no one would go for the rally. Tunu Gope said he planned to have Modiji attend the procession and perform with the lathi, but it would have been too chaotic," said Mahant Vijay Anand Das of the Bada Akhara, also a member of the VHP's state Margdarshak Mandal.

The Ram Navami alone should do the trick. "Yashwant Sinha and his son have no connect with the people. Our vote is for Narendra Modi.... How can devotees who come to the procession and take Shri Ram into their hearts not vote for the BJP?" asked Ganshyam Gope, former district president of the VHP, also father of BJP president Tunu. He should know: Ganshyam Gope's father Panchu Gope was one of the individuals who took the lead in celebrating the Ram Navami in a big way since 1925.

As the procession builds, even children come out
with bamboo lathis to show off their skills

Three generations of the Gope family's involvement in the Ram Navami is good illustration of how the festival became communalised over the years. "He was not a member of any organisation. Many political parties invited him, but he never went," said Ganshyam Gope of his father. In fact, Panchu Gope apparently died in the shock of being misunderstood for being communal. "He used to involve the Muslims in the celebration, too. However, in 1973, the police detained him as a precautionary measure after fights broke out. After release, he was never the same again and died in July the same year," said Ganshyam Gope.

That it should be during Ghanshyam Gope's - president of the 200-odd member Shanti Samiti, which meets to keep peace ahead of each festival - watch that 1989 happened is an irony.

The riot of April 16, 1989 officially claimed 19 lives. There have been no further riots, but it seems to have changed the political terrain of Hazaribagh - and even adjoining areas - forever. The BJP, which had garnered only 7.08 per cent of votes in the 1984 general election, won in the elections of November 1989 by collecting 43.98 per cent. It has never fallen below the second position in the constituency since, winning four of six times.

The year was a turning point for the BJP across the country: marked by the Ram Shila Puja and the communal riots connected to it, it has been estimated that 47 of the 88 seats that the party won in 1989 had experienced riots.

It gets interesting as the procession reaches the entrance to the Masjid Road,
off the Main Road.  Floats pause briefly before the barricades, with
people - poorly trained  and overly enthusiastic - perform with lathis and "swords."

Ganshyam Gope laid the blame at the door of the district administration. The riot happened over the dispute as to whether the procession should pass through Jama Masjid road, a narrow 200 metre stretch off the Main Road. "The previous year, someone had thrown a glass tumbler at Goddess Durga's idol as it passed through the Masjid Road, so the administration suggested that we move it to Malviya Marg. There was no need to do that. It was peaceful already. Later, when there was no problem, we moved it back to the Masjid road," recalled Ganshyam Gope, who blames "goonda" elements on both sides for the communal tension.

On the Masjid Road, they remember 1989 differently. "After 1987, it was decided that the procession would take the parallel, broader Malviya Road. After all, there were only four Hindu houses on this street, after all. We also agreed to move the Muharram procession route from Panchmandir road to Jama Masjid Road," said Ghulam Moinuddin Ahmad, Secretary of the Jama Masjid, also a member of the Shanti Samiti.

According to Ghulam Ahmad, the Hindus did not take out the 1988 Ram Navami procession in protest of this decision. He blames the riot on the man who won the 1989 elections. "Yadunath Pandey came from Ranchi in 1989. He really stoked tensions," he said. A few days before the Ram Navami, the permission to pass through Masjid Road was given.

The procession passed through peacefully at about two in the afternoon on the third day. "Soon after, police were called away elsewhere for an emergency," said Ahmad. In an interview, Lalu Prasad had blamed Rajiv Gandhi for this, pointing out that Rajiv and Sonia Gandhi had gone to the Vaishali festival from Patna, with the former driving. Police personnel were rushed to provide security along the route.

By about 4 PM that evening, a bomb went off in Hazaribagh. No security personnel were around to control the people. "Kani Bazaar was finished," recalled Ahmad. Why hasn't another riot happened since? "The police went into the Muslim areas and acted with a firm hand. The goondas among them understood they will be punished if they repeat it," said Ganshyam Gope.

One of the many Rapid Action Force personnel on the Masjid Road.
Left background, the mosque.

The result of the riot was that the procession, taken out by 135 akharas of the district, got even larger. "It was decided that the procession would not enter the Masjid Road on the second night, so we came to be celebrating for a third day," said Mahant Vijay Das. The procession reaches the barricaded entrance to the Masjid Road in the wee hours of the third day. "I give the district administration the Azan and Namaz schedules for the day. Accordingly, the barricades are opened and closed five times through the day to let the procession through," said Ahmad. The charged mass of people take at least 12 hours to pass through the 200 metre lane.

The narrative of 1989 and its aftermath is important: it repeated in a chilling manner on April 8 in Giridih district's Tetaria Selaidih village within Birni police station limits. "The Ram Navami procession there does not pass through the Jama Masjid Road, but this time people insisted on taking it. We held some 10-12 Peace Committee meetings, at the end of which, permission was denied. However, as the procession passed through, some people tried to break through the barricades and go into the Masjid Road," said Kranti Kumar Garhdeshi, Giridih's Superintendent of Police. Police were forced to fire into the air in the ensuing melee and seven policemen and 5-6 villagers received minor injuries.

Former Hazaribagh MP Yadunath Pandey was one of the BJP leaders who tried to reach the area. "Some outsiders came here today, but we denied them permission as the Model Code of Conduct is on," said SP Garhdeshi.

Dumri’s MLA with the durbar

This was published here
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.

MLA's kangaroo court could have caused murder

Chandrapura, March 22

Relatives of Santosh Pandey alleged that Dumri MLA and JMM man Jagarnath Mahto's unchecked habit of holding extralegal Jan Adalats resulted in the death of the youngster in Bokaro district on Thursday morning.

Jagarnath, now the JMM's candidate from Giridih Lok Sabha constituency, and elder brother Baidyanath Mahto are among nine named in the FIR on the murder of Santosh (25), filed on the basis of a complaint by the victim's brother.

Santosh's family alleges that Jagarnath, who hails from the same village as theirs, ordered the youngster's execution in a Jan Adalat held in front of his house. They also allege that Santosh was taken to the D.V.C. Hospital in Chandrapura 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 that Santosh was at the hospital for more than an hour and talked to the reporter of a television news channel before succumbing to suspected internal injuries.

Baidyanath was one of the five people named by Santosh in a statement given to the Bermo reporter of regional Hindi channel Kashish News minutes before he breathed his last. However, Santosh did not name Jagarnath when asked to name those who assaulted him. The district police, which arrested two of the girl's relatives on Friday, has moved to obtain the channel's footage.

Santosh, an Arts graduate, was beaten to death for eloping with a girl from Simratoli, a hamlet of his village, Alargo. "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," said Santosh in his statement to the news channel.

Both Santosh and the girl - rumoured to be a minor - are brahmins, but belong to different castes. Jagarnath is a Kurmi, the dominant caste. "He sided with the girl's family because they live in the same hamlet," said Anant Lal Pandey, fifth of nine siblings of whom Santosh was youngest, who filed the police complaint naming Jagarnath.

Anant Lal alleges that his brother and the girl were taken forcibly by the girl's family from Chennai. They had eloped on on March 12, with the girl's family noticing her disappearance the next day.

"When someone informed me that my son had been picked up by the girl's family, I rushed to the mukhiya, pleaded with him to ensure that my son is safe," said Santosh's mother Jayanti Devi.

Her fears were not unfounded. This newspaper has reported on Jagarnath's Adalats, where he has ordered that errant husbands be tied to to trees and has caned alleged molestors of local women. The police are yet to file an FIR against him based on these Adalats as the legislator's victims do not come forward to register complaints.

Whether the legislator was home at the time when Santosh was assaulted is a matter of dispute - there are three versions in circulation - but it is clear that his assaulters took moral authority from the violent nature of the Adalats.

"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.

Anant Lal disagreed. "Baidyanath is nothing without his brother. Jagarnath was there; he ordered that my brother be killed," he claimed.

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.

No more arrests were made in the case on Saturday. Bokaro's Superintendent of Police Jitendra Singh said the post-mortem report is awaited.

Marandi says death threat; Maoist document concurs

Ranchi, New Delhi/ March 13

Former chief Babulal Marandi on Thursday said in Dumka that his political rivals are out to kill him and claimed, without naming anyone, that a supari has been given in his name.

Marandi was talking about a clear and present danger - a March 12 Indian Express report had said that 12 political leaders of the region have been targeted by Maoists this election. Quoting from a document prepared on instructions from the Central Committee of the CPI-Maoist and seized from Bihar's Munger on February 3, the report went on to say that Marandi's Jharkhand Vikas Morcha is one of the targets.

"I am not taking names, but a political leader here has given supari to kill me," Babulal told a press conference. "The entire state has Naxal presence.... I don't have sufficient security cover," he added. His son Anup was gunned down by alleged Maoists in October 2007.

The Maoist document talks of the 12 leaders to be targeted two-syllable, coded terms. However, there are two that are interesting in the context of Marandi's claims on Thursday - the second and third names on the list are "Babu" and "Nunu." Marandi has a son named Nunu. In fact, after the attack on his brother at an event in which he was also present, Nunu had told the Indian Express that the Maoists had come asking for him.

The document talks of two strategies for the general elections. The first is the political, whose main instrument is the boycott of the whole process. The second is the military strategy. "The BJP, Congress and JVM should be targeted militarily," goes the document. "The campaign vehicles of these parties should be put on fire. Selected politicians should be targeted and even the campaign vehicles of alliance parties should be targeted," it adds.

However, the document insists that there should be no attack on civilians on voting day.

JVM's general secretary Pradeep Yadav said that other parties were jealous of Marandi's steady rise. "Our party has been going from strength to strength and people are jealous of that. When our leader said that he was being targeted by politicians, he also meant to point out that even if the Maoists are targeting him, it is because some politicians are behind them," he said.

Jharkhand DGP Rajeev Kumar said that the Ministry of Home Affairs, which is in possession of the document, has not yet shared it with the state police. "Let mister Marandi give us a complaint about his insecurity, we will look into that," he said.

AJSU leader gunned down; LWE organisation suspected

Ranchi, March 8

The AJSU Party has called for a statewide bandh on Sunday after its Chatra Lok Sabha constituency incharge Tileshwar Sahu was shot dead by two suspected members of the left wing extremist outfit PLFI in Hazaribagh district on Saturday afternoon.

Police are looking into whether the murder is linked to the death of Sahu's father Gajendra, allegedly killed by members of an LWE organisation in April 2008.

Police are monitoring Hazaribagh, where the murder took place and Gumla, where Sahu mostly lived. "Law and order remains under control. It is too early to consider imposing Section 144, etc. People have blocked the road as of now," said DGP Rajeev Kumar.

Sahu, whom party sources say was likely to be declared AJSU's candidate either from the Chatra seat this time or Barhi assembly constituency in the elections scheduled in 2015, was shot twice in Hazaribagh's Barhi by two men on a bike on his way home from a meeting to mark International Women's Day, where he was chief guest.

An, individual named Suraj Kumar who hails from Gumla district, where Sahu too is from, was chased and captured by AJSU workers and policemen. He been arrested and a pistol was recovered. "He has confessed to the murder. There was another youngster with him. We think he is from the PLFI," said Hazaribagh SP Manoj Kaushik. However, police are yet to believe Suraj's claims as his statements have been inconsistent.

The PLFI and Sahu have a history. In December 2013, a timer-fitted bomb was recovered in Simdega from a petrol pump owned by Sahu. "We later confirmed that it was a PLFI device. The same brand of timers were recovered when we raided a gun factory that the organisation used to operate," said Simdega SP Asim V. Minj.

Sahu, former chairperson of the state's Pollution Control Board, had in January complained to the Ranchi police that an LWE organisation had demanded an AK-47 and a carbine from him.

His father was gunned down in April 2008 within Kamdara police station of Gumla district. An FIR registered on the basis of a complaint by Sahu's mother had claimed then that then-minister Enos Ekka was behind the murder. "Ekka was later cleared, while six others mentioned in the FIR have been charge sheeted. They were all criminals; no single organisation was responsible," said Gumla SP Bhimsen Tuti.

Sahu, a prominent leader of the OBC Teli caste, was widely perceived as the rock on which Ekka built his empire in Simdega district's Kolebira. They had a falling out later, after which Ekka was instrumental in the arrest of Sahu in a case relating to the murder of six people in Simdega. They were killed by Shanti Sena in 2006, created by Sahu and claiming to an anti-Maoist force.