Modi goes to Hemant's constituencies as BJP unleashes Santhal Pargana atttack

This was published, edited, here. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday took on Jharkhand Chief Minister head-on today, addressing rallies in both constituencies where Hemant Soren is contesting from.

It was a tacit acknowledgement that Hemant Soren, a first-time MLA, has grown big enough to warrant the BJP's undivided attention. The BJP needs to improve its tally of two seats in the 16 constituencies that go the boiths as part of the last phase on December 20. For this, it needs to weaken the JMM, which holds 10 seats of the 16.

Modi addressed rallies within Dumka and Barhait constituencies. Speaking at the Dumka airport in a speech that lasted about 35 minutes, Modi pulled a few punches against Hemant Soren, using the baap-bete reference only once in the JMM stronghold which is currently the CM's constituency. At Barhait, where Hemant is going up against JMM defector Hemlal Murmu, the PM was more combative: "This baap-bete will not let anyone get ahead." This has become a strategy of Modi: attack an individual anywhere but his stronghold; the PM probably understands unrestrained attacks could have a backlash among people of the area.

The strategy of the PM going to the two constituencies could backfire if Hemant manages to win both. "We are willing to take that chance. The important thing is to show now that we are not afraid," said a member of the BJP's campaign team at the state headquarters.

At Dumka, Modi said in passing that, ".... none of you have got anything, but the baap-bete's coffers have been filled." He seemed to be cautious of treading a fine line when criticising the Sorens: "If a child commits an error, will his mother reward him with a laddoo? Won't the mother punish to correct the child?" Modi then went on to suggest that the voters should punish the Sorens. "Even if you like them, you should vote for the BJP to punish them.... Punish them now so that they will be of use to you five years later."

Modi campaigned for nine candidates, including one of the LJP, at Dumka. Upon arrival at 12 PM, when Dumka candidate Louis Marandi bowed in welcome after gifting him a traditional Santhali shawl, Modi too bowed. Later, the PM began his speech with a greeting in Santhali language even as he performed the Johar, clutching the right elbow and touching the forehead with a clenched right first. The district administration had planned for a crowd of 50,000; over a lakh turned up according to a source with access to the SPG's assessment.

Even though adivasis in the crowd were far outnumbered, Modi made it a point to talk about them extensively. "I am willing to give my life for the welfare of my poor adivasis," the PM said. The BJP is seeking to bring together the adivasis into its vote base of Santhal Pargana's "outsiders" in order to breach the JMM stronghold. ".... They (Opposition) tell adivasis that Modi government will take away your land. I tell you, there is no one in this country who can take away the rights of the adivasis," Modi said.

Modi said that adivasis in various states had repeatedly elected BJP governments. "BJP governments have given away the maximum land titles," he said. However, Modi's proclamations on adivasis received lukewarm response from the audience. On the other hand, when the PM mentioned jobs and unemployment for all, the crowd cheered as one.

Modi said adivasis had not asked for government bungalows, official vehicles and gold. Instead, they want only water, education and medicines. "Should the government not give all this? If they could not do all this, what were they doing?" Modi asked, signalling a digging action with his hands. "Loot! They have looted with both hands. You have blessed me to end this loot," Modi said, adding that he was a chowkidar in Delhi.

Insider role in Chaibasa jailbreak?

This was published, edited, here.

Police suspect the involvement of a guard in the Chaibasa jailbreak by Maoists on Tuesday evening, when CCTV cameras, mobile jammers and warning sirens at the facility did not work.

Senior officers are yet to believe the jail guards' claim that the prisoners threw chili powder on them during the incident. None of the 15 who escaped have been apprehended; police officers admit in private they are not hopeful of catching most of them.

Sentries on the rooftop of the district jail in the heart of the town, about half a kilometre from the Superintendent of Police's office, had opened fire when a total of 20 prisoners attempted to flee at about 4.15 PM on Tuesday. They had been part of a group of 55 being returned from the district court after hearings. Two senior commanders of the CPI-Maoist's PLGA were killed while 15 others escaped; three others were involved in a scuffle with jail guards and were subdued after suffering minor injuries.

West Singhbhum district's Superintendent of Police Narendra Kumar Singh said Mochirai Munda, an ex-serviceman employed as a jail guard on a contractual basis, has been named in the First Information Report. "He has been named along with those who escaped as he was responsible for opening both the gates. He should have closed the main gate before opening the second. We will interrogate him to find out if it was intentional," said SP Singh.

The jail van, with 55 undertrials inside, reversed into the premises through the main gate. Munda, who held the keys to the main as well as a smaller entrance through which prisoners had to go on foot, left the main gate wide open. Thirty five prisoners had passed through the second gate when Ramvilas Tanti and Tipa Das, both platoon commanders and the seniormost among the 20 left, began attempting to snatch the guards' weapons.

Guards have since told their superiors that the prisoners threw chilli powder on their faces, but SP Singh said he had found no evidence to support their claim yet. As the prisoners ran out, police personnel who had escorted the van in two bullet-proof vehicles and an escort vehicle from the local police station fired in the air. After this, two sentries on top of the jail's roof shot at Das and Tanti, who were left behind as they had been trying to make away with the weapons. Both bodies were found between the main and second gates.

"We have given show-cause notices to 15 personnel, which includes the 10 who were in the three escort vehicles outside the jail. We want to find out why they were not able to apprehend the fleeing suspects," said SP Singh. Police have not yet come across any evidence that the prisoners had help on the outside. "I think they picked yesterday because the Mangala haat (weekly bazaar) sits on Tuesdays," said the SP. Once the fleeing men were among the crowd, they became one with it.

However, suspicion of help from inside lingers. "We are trying to find out how the siren that was sound in case of a jailbreak did not sound. We have to find out for how long the CCTV directed at the main gate and jammers have been inactive," said SP Singh. As the 20 outside made their escape attempt, the 35 who had gone through the second gate tried to get out, which raises doubts that there were a larger conspiracy afoot. The 35 could not get out as guards closed the gate immediately.

There will be a Magisterial inquiry into the shooting. The SP and the Deputy Commissioner of Chaibasa will prepare a joint report on the incident. Inspector General (Prisons) Shailendra Bhushan, who was at the Chaibasa jail on Wednesday, has been asked by Home Secretary N.N. Pandey to inquire into the incident. "I am currently talking to various individuals to get an understanding of what happened. No new information has surfaced yet," said Bhushan over phone.

For SP Singh, appointed this January, the loss is particularly difficult to digest. "We had made 45 Naxal arrests and topping the state in terms of arrests. It was so difficult to arrest them - Tipa Das was arrested in August from Cuttack when he went to be treated for an ailment - and now, all that is lost," said Singh.

For similar reasons, police officers admit it would be difficult to arrest most of those who escaped. "Johnson Ganjhu, who was an area commander and is the seniormost of those who escaped, was boycotted by his party. It will take him at least six months to regain their trust. That is a useful window for us," said an officer who did not want to be quoted for this story. As for the rest, police expect them to leave the district. "They will go to Delhi, Punjab and work as labourers. Almost all of them were low-level operatives like couriers and were charged with relatively minor offences. Unless someone surrenders, they will face even bigger sentences for this jailbreak," the officer continued, "These are guys who make a mistake only once."

The incident has also brought to light the need for video conferencing facilities inside the jail. There have been multiple cases of prisoners escaping or attempting to during court appearances. "The Chaibasa jail does not have it currently. Ideally, we should be able to present prisoners through VC after presenting them before a court only once," said the officer.

Chaibasa jail has witnessed a jailbreak by Maoists before, in 2011. All three who escaped that day remain at large - Sandeep has since grown to become one of the seniormost leaders of the party in the state.

Marandi becomes TSPC's Trojan Horse at state assembly gates

This was published, edited, here.

Babulal Marandi's JVM-P, depleted by the flight of eight of its 11 MLAs, is performing a dangerous experiment in Chatra district's Simariya constituency by promoting a candidate who is using the opportunity to further the cause of a banned organisation he has links to.

Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (Prajatantrik) has nominated Ganesh Ganjhu to the Simariya seat; Ganesh is the elder brother of Brajesh Ganjhu, the supremo of the banned left wing extremist organisation Tritiya Sammelan Prastuti Committee. 

The TSPC has thrown its weight behind Ganesh, especially in the Lawalong block where its main leaders live: no other party managed to open campaign offices there. Reports from the ground indicate TSPC, whose supremo Brajesh is widely expected to eventually become a politician, has used its clout to support JVM-P candidates in the adjoining Chatra and Latehar constituencies, which voted on November 25.

Former CM Babulal Marandi knows the dangers of extremism well: his son Anup Marandi was killed by alleged Maoists in 2007. Yet, cornered after most his legislators defected to the BJP, Marandi - who has always stood for a clean public image - seems to have prioritised survival over everything else. His party had also given its Tamar ticket to Mahadev Ravinath Pahan, related to Kundan Pahan, the state's second-most-wanted Maoist leader.

By giving the TSPC the opportunity to win three seats, Marandi risks being beholden to the Ganjhu brothers if they succeed. It is also a measure of the TSPC’s growth over the past five years that it now aspires to win three seats.

The JMM is also not far behind: among others, it has given tickets to wives of former Maoists in Tamar and Chatra; its Simariya candidate Rajkumari Devi is the wife of banned organisation Jharkhand Prastuti Committee's supremo Guddu Ganjhu.

"Babulal Marandi is a good leader, but he has spoilt his party's name by giving ticket to Ganesh here," said Binod Bihari Paswan, the Communist Party of India's Simariya candidate, who was fired upon by unknown assailants on Saturday night. "I am sure it was the TPC. Before I filed my nomination, two boys on a bike had threatened me by saying only Ganesh Ganjhu will contest from here," said Binod, whom the bullets missed and who now moves around with seven bodyguards.

The BJP has also complained to the Election Commission, alleging it's workers have been beaten up. "Ganesh Ganjhu has not let my supporters campaign in Lawalong. The administration is refusing to take our complaints seriously," said BJP's candidate Sujeet Bharati. This newspaper has reported that the TSPC was formed by the state police and continues to enjoy its patronage.

In the 2010 elections to local bodies, the TSPC had ensured that most of Lawalong would be represented by its nominees, elected unopposed. Brajesh Ganjhu his himself the deputy panchayat president of Lawalong. Sources in Lawalong told this newspaper that Ganesh's campaign was on Monday - the eve of the campaign - distributing blankets among voters. These blankets were presumably supplied by the state government to panchayats to be given to people for the season.

Earlier this year, chief minister Hemant Soren had told the state assembly that former DGP V.D. Ram had formed the TSPC; Ram is currently a Lok Sabha member of the BJP - there were allegations that the TSPC had supported his attempt to be Palamu MP. The TSPC had supported the BJP's LS campaign in Chatra too - as Ganesh was then a BJP member. He had moved over from the JMM, which had given him a ticket in 2009: he came second.

This assembly election, Chatra's outgoing MLA and RJD candidate Janardhan Paswan had alleged the TSPC supported JVM-P candidate Satyanand Bhokta by holding Jan Adalats. This newspaper had reported from Latehar on how a TSPC squad threatened villagers, demanding votes for JVM-P's Prakash Ram. In contrast, the JVM-P's LS election candidate Neelam Devi - a Prakash Ram choice - was reportedly supported by the CPI-Maoist.

Maoists allege CRPF used villagers as human shields; victims corroborate

This was published, edited, here.

Kaleshwar, left and Surender, right
reveal injuries

During a meeting within Latehar district, the spokesperson of the CPI-Maoist's Koel Sankh Zone has alleged that CRPF personnel used the villagers - even women and children - of Lai as human shields during an encounter on November 26.

Five Lai villagers to whom this newspaper talked to corroborated the Maoists' version; they went further and added that even the women among them were abused and beaten by CRPF personnel during the course of the day. Lai has an almost exclusively adivasi population; three of the eight detained for about three days by the police were of the Parhaiya tribe, classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group.

The formation allegedly adopted by the CRPF is similar to that adopted by the paramilitary force in the aftermath of a January 7 encounter. The attempt, to retrieve the bodies of their dead colleagues, had resulted in the death of four villagers when they were allegedly forced to retrieve the bodies.

In a phone conversation with this newspaper, Michael S. Raj said the allegations were a propaganda effort by Maoists, who forced the villagers to say what they said.

The Lai encounter took place during the day on November 26, as CRPF and CoBRA personnel were on the 12 km stretch from Kotam village to Sarju police picket within Garu block. They were returning after providing security to the first phase of polling in Manika constituency, held the previous day. EVMs and civilian officials had already been airlifted.

"Our PLGA team was waiting in ambush, but the CRPF took another route. So our team followed them and began the encounter at about 8.30 in the morning," said the CPI-Maoist leader who assumed the sobriquet of spokesperson Manasji for this interview. The name has been used by multiple Maoist leaders since Lalesh Yadav, who used to handle the responsibilities of spokesperson using the name, was killed last year. This particular leader, a senior operative in the Maoist organisation, refused to be identified by his real name for this story.

The encounter would go on till about four in the evening, at the end of which the Maoists burnt eight tractors carrying the CRPF's supplies before retreating in the face of the arrival of massive reinforcements. There were no injuries on either side; it was ultimately the villagers, caught in between, who suffered.

Maoists claim that the PLGA had asked villagers of Lai - a village with 85 households and a population of 400 - to move out as they took positions. However, villagers were in the village as the encounter began.

Manti Kumari (18), who lives closest to the location the security forces were concentrated in - there are four bullet holes on the outside of her house - said that about five CRPF personnel arrived at her door an hour into the encounter. "They began slapping me and my sister. She was beaten more than me," she said. This newspaper is withholding Manti's sister's name as she is likely a minor - 16 years old and a ninth standard student.

Manti said they were taken to their brother's empty house and asked to search inside. "All the while, while, the forces kept calling us Maoists and kept abusing us. Once they confirmed Jiten's house was empty, they kept saying we had to take off our clothes. We refused. They later left us in a different part of the village," she said.

Around the same time, security forces searched Jagdish Parhaiya's house and found three country-made guns. "I have to go into the jungle all the time; I am a Parhaiya, after all. It comes in handy while hunting," said Jagdish (60). "They dragged me and my son out and started beating us. He was beaten with lathis," said Jagdish. Surender Parhaiya (22), who was celebrating the sixth day of his firstborn's birth, has six marks on his back, allegedly from being beaten with lathis.

Kaleshwar Parhaiya (51) was hit with the butt of a rifle as he sat crouched in his potato field to escape the crossfire; he has two half-moon marks on his back. Indermani Devi, his wife said she was kicked on the back and beaten with lathis as she sat on her haunches. Sushil Oraon (25), said the personnel who entered his premises shouted at him saying, "Yeh hai Naxali hero" and took him along with about 50 others to Chiratola Middle School, two kilometres away. "Almost all of us has our hands tied - they did not tie women's hands. They asked us men to take off our shirts and tied our hands with it," said Sushil. When asked to describe how they were taken, Sushil said, ".... beaten throughout, like cattle."

Security forces, which had retreated along with the tractors, to the school's vicinity, then attempted to get out quickly by instructing the tractors to move out quickly. They also sent out a villager to scout the area. Personnel followed on foot, with villagers and Maoists alleging that they took shelter behind villagers' bodies.

The position described by villagers - and demonstrated - was similar to what the CRPF allegedly used in Amwatikar village of Latehar on January 8. This was when they were attempting to retrieve the bodies of 10 jawans killed in an encounter the previous day. Four villagers were killed and a fifth injured as an IED that the Maoists had planted inside the abdomen of a dead jawan exploded.

"They made us stand in a (horizontal) line and walked behind us, adjusting our position from the back," said Sushil. By then, the Maoists had intercepted the tractors. "When the Maoists saw us, they began shooting. The bullets passed overhead. The forces crouched when they saw the Maoists and began shooting from behind us. We also crouched," Sushil said.

Maoist spokesperson Manasji claimed the PLGA stopped shooting when they saw the villagers were in the way. "The PLGA did not want to harm the villagers, so they stopped shooting. Then a decision was made to set the tractors on fire," said Manasji. He claimed the Maoists did not get time to take out what he estimated was 5000-odd bullets and several grenades from within the tractors, but this newspaper saw no evidence of the remains of these items at the encounter site.

"The fact that the Maoists invited you to the region and told you about the incident means that they are making this a propaganda issue. If the villagers had invited, it was a different matter altogether," said Latehar SP Michael Raj. He said that Jagdish Parhaiya, from whom weapons were recovered, were let off after an investigation. "Lai is in a region where the Maoists enjoy immense support. They have forced the villagers to make these claims," said the SP.

After the encounter, the security forces took along eight men - including Jagdish Parhaiya - and detained them for about two days before letting them off without levelling any charges. "The rest were let off at the banks of the river, but they asked us to carry their belongings across. However, when we crossed, they took us all the way to the Sarju (police) picket," said Sushil.

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.

xxxx

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.

xxxx

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.

To be a Maoist in Jharkhand

(This was published, edited, here.)

In the dark about what his bosses think about him, yest over-worked and under-rested. Separated from his wife and unable to see his mother who suffers from mouth cancer. 

Jeevan Kandulna (36) could be just be another Indian man who keeps his emotions bottled. However, Jeevan's is no ordinary life.

In a rare, candid interview, a platoon commander of the Communist Party of India-Maoist's People's Liberation Guerrilla Army spoke to this newspaper in the past week within the Porahat forest of Jharkhand's West Singhbhum district.

Jeevan assumed de-facto charge of the crucial Porahat sub-zone when senior leader Prasadji - whose real name is Krishan Ahir - was picked up by Ranchi police on August 13. "The party has not yet sent a replacement for Prasadji. In fact, no senior leader has talked to me since his arrest. I am supposed to co-ordinate with Bundu sub-zonal commander Dheeraj-da, but it has not been easy," said Jeevan, a Munda adivasi who uses the name Gajendra Singh, hails from Khunti district's Torpa block.

A full platoon of the PLGA comprises 30 fighters. There are at least two other platoons in the Porahat sub-zone. Kundan Pahan, the second-most wanted Maoist leader in the state, moves around with one of them.

The police made another significant arrest after Prasadji's, taking in Mukhlal Mahto (Mochu), who they say replaced Prasadji in Ranchi's Silli sub-zone. Jeevan disputes this: "As far as I know, the in-charge of Silli has been Pragati-da. But then, I wouldn't be so sure - I have not been reading newspapers for the last few months."

When this newspaper visited the site from where police say Mochu was arrested, villagers claimed he was brought in a police vehicle and that no encounter with his squad took place, as claimed by the police. With Prasadji, senior police officers have confirmed to this newspaper that he was picked up while on his way to meet his girlfriend and that no encounter had taken place as claimed before the the media.

Despite the arrests, Jeevan believes Silli has been a major gain. "The party was never present in Silli. We used to use it only as a corridor (connecting West Bengal's Purulia district) and could not afford to stay. We established a sub-zone and Prasadji was given additional charge of it earlier this year," said Jeevan.

The reason why Jeevan could not read newspapers was because he was down with brain malaria since June. Later, when Kundan Pahan's elder brother Dimba - a platoon commander who uses the name Suresh - joins us, he also reveals he was recently diagnosed with malaria.

Jeevan admits the party organisation is not in a healthy state in his region. "We had to hurriedly celebrate the Martyrs' Week (July) this year. The Foundation Week celebrations too, were held hurriedly in four places. The police were swarming here," he said. The Maoists have not managed to conduct the Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign - when they plan and execute major attacks against security forces - yet this year. The party is yet to announce its plan of action ahead of the assembly elections here.

"When a school teacher was arrested for being our supporter, we tried to conduct a mass agitation demanding that his replacement be posted immediately. People did not turn up in large numbers," he said. The party has been trying to mobilise alleged victims of sexual harrassment by security forces on anti-left wing extremist operations, but villagers remain scared to speak up. "I have asked a victim and her father to meet me. They are not coming forward," said Jeevan, constantly reminding us that his operational area shares space with Birsa Munda's.

Jeevan says the grassroots organisation has gone missing: "The party works through its committees. We don't have the Nari (Mukti Sangh) and (Krantikari) Kisan Committee are non-existent. I am the only person running the party here; there should be at least three." The situation is akin to a civilian head of state also being the chief of armed staff. In a sign that the Maoist party has come to be an overtly militaristic organisation, Jeevan says his militia is still strong. "Recruitment is still healthy. Our cadres could do with more training, though. Also, a number of them are not staying for long," he said.

In July this year, the West Singhbhum police had arrested a man travelling with 13 minors. He named Jeevan, saying the children had been on their way to join his squad. Most of the 10-15 sentries who secured the perimeter and kept watch looked like they were pushing the envelope when it comes to looking over 18 years old. When they were making their cadres pose for photographs, Suresh mumbled, "Only the two of us are left as seniors. Everyone else is gone."

Jeevan says he joined the party in 2009. His story is symptomatic of the conditions the CPI-Maoist operates in South Chotanagpur. "I joined after a neighbour who was with the PLFI (People's Liberation Front of India, the state's largest splinter group) killed one of my sisters. Those in my family then began attempting to kill him or his relatives," said Jeevan. Eventually, when he needed external support to counter the PLFI, Jeevan went over to the Maoists. His village is less than a kilometre from Jiten Gudiya's, the PLFI's second-in-command.

The PLFI is the enemy that knows the Maoists all too well and is the immediate threat. Jeevan admits of the three areas in his sub-zone, his party has no presence in one. "They keep coming into our territory. When we try to encounter them, they run away," he said.

The police are also closing in. Jeevan's wife Nirmala was arrested on July 8. This means Jeevan is yet to see his daughter, who was two months old then. He insists his wife was never a member of the party even while admitting two of his sisters were. "Recently, the police took my brother to meet my wife. It must have been to convince me to surrender, because he came back saying the government would give me land, money and five police security guards if I gave up arms," he said. Neither the state's or the central government's surrender policies have provisions for armed guards. He laughs at the suggestion, though. "It was easy to identify and fight the amgrez. On the other hand, these kala angrez - those who cheat our people - are not easy targets," he said.

Jeevan talks of a night early in October when he went to visit his mother, who has cancer in the mouth. "I had to see her because I had not been home for a long time due to my malaria. My parents keep telling me not to come as the police keep an eye out for me. As soon as I reached, the police arrived. I ran, hid in the forest for a day and escaped," he said.

As if it was an afterthought, Jeevan also says that his joining had to do with more than personal gains. "I was there when the Koel-Karo firing took place. I saw people die because they did not have anything to fight back with," he said. The February 2, 2001 firing, which took place in what is now Khunti district, resulted in the death of eight people when police took on those agitating against a hydroelectric project.

Love Tinderbox

The Sangh Parivar had organised a bandh in Ranchi on Monday. On Thursday, the BJP called for one in Chatra. Today, the VHP has declared a shutdown in Khunti. On the day after Eid too, there was a bandh by the Sangh Parivar - to protest a clash in Ranchi between Muslims, adivasis and the police the previous day, in which one individual had died.

The Monday bandh was protesting the delay in the arrest of Ranjeet Singh Kohli, whose wife Tara Shahdeo alleged that he had assaulted her with the intention of converting her to Islam. The Sangh Parivar alleged that it was a case of Love Jihad. The momentum it created through a campaign wholeheartedly supported by the media helped them proclaim an incident in Chatra too, as an instance of Love Jihad and declare another bandh. On Friday, the VHP is protesting the alleged vandalising of an idol in at least one temple in Khunti.

November cannot come soon enough for Jharkhand. As the state inches closer to possibly holding elections that month, the sense is that a communal stake is being driven into the society, one hammering at a time.

Those who usually brand journalists as "paid and sickular" at the first available opportunity have been silent through the reporting surrounding the Tara-Ranjeet case. The media has given them little reason to be aggrieved about. "Do you think he [Ranjeet] is part of the ISI?" asked the reporter of a news channel to Tara in the presence of this newspaper. The 23-year-old, once an Eastern Zone champion in 10 m air rifle, looked perplexed. Another channel showed video footage of Ranjeet's mother swaying at her son's wedding to argue that she was well enough to assault her daughter-in-law.

The English dailies jumped on the bandwagon, too. Reporting on the seizure of Ranjeet's passport, one of them called him only as Rakibul Hasan Khan, the name Tara alleges he uses while in his Islamic identity. The newspaper's insistence on using the name came despite the passport itself being in Ranjeet Singh Kohli's name. Another published a report which claimed Ranjeet was being probed for terror links without having a single official say - either on or off the record - about the nature of allegations. The only quote on the claim is one by the state DGP, who merely says his force is probing, "all angles." By that yardstick, Ranjeet surely should be a suspect in the FIFA bribery scandal. The headline to a report in an English daily here on Friday has gone ahead and called Ranjeet a "love jihadist."

What the media does not realise is that it is becoming propaganda tools in the process. When the BJP declared a bandh in Chatra on Thursday, it alleged that a Muslim boy had been arrested for deceiving a Hindu girl into marrying him. The media has largely gone by the BJP-VHP version of events. Muslim Boy Jailed For Deceiving Girl goes the headline to a report in an English daily, which begins, "Another case of alleged love jihad was reported from Chatra district...." The report ignore the fact that the FIR does not mention conversions and that the boy was jailed because he had sexual relations with the girl, a minor. On Thursday, a Hindi daily reported that the family of a girl in Hazaribagh was alleging that she had been kidnapped by Muslim boys for religious conversion. The paper played up the conversion claim, relegating the Superintendent of Police's explanation that the couple had been in a relationship and had eloped, to the last sentence of its report.

What the reporting around the Tara-Ranjeet case in Jharkhand has exposed is also a shifting of goalposts by the Sangh Parivar: that it has altered the definition of its own conspiracy theory to suit its aims. When the Love Jihad allegations first surfaced in Kerala and Mangalore in 2008-'09, the Sangh Parivar alleged a larger conspiracy whereby Muslim boys were asked to entrap Hindu girls. Now, as the Chatra and Hazaribagh incidents would indicate, it is Love Jihad enough to "deceive" or fall in love with a Hindu girl on your own. Even the Sangh Parivar has alleged that Ranjeet is part of a wider network and the media has picked up on the insinuation, but there has been no evidence or anecdote to support the claim.

Surely, a lot of allegations against Ranjeet may come true yet. The police say he has accepted that he has friends in the judiciary, that he kept a room for himself in a hotel in Ranchi to entertain high-profile guests late into the night and that he assaulted his wife once. He has even accepted that he performed the nikaah two days after marrying Tara in a Hindu ceremony, but claims it was with the girl's consent and that he has never converted to Islam himself. However, media organisations have been only too happy to fill in the gaps in the story with theories of their own: when a former neighbour of the Kohlis' claims Ranjeet's mother was born a Muslim - which she denies - journalists wrote that she may have influenced her son to convert.

The media seems to have pronounced judgement in a case with little documentary evidence and it may have provided the spark for those who want to start a fire. Whatever happened to "Minimise Harm?"