annual report print final.qxd - Asian Centre for Human Rights

INDIA HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT 2005 Bihar
On 7 August 2004, six persons,
including five Dalits, were killed in two
separate incidents at Kulsia village in
Madhepura district following a land
dispute. The victims included three
women and a four-year-old child. 31
ii. Violence by the Naxals
On the night of 13 January 2004,
alleged cadres of the People’s War
reportedly raided Mirjapur village under
Sakurabad police station in Jehanabad
district and killed four alleged supporters
of Ranvir Sena and wounded three others
in indiscriminate firing. The villagers had
assembled at a temple. 32
The PWG cadres reportedly set
several huts on fire in Mok village in Gaya
district following the killing of one of its
comrades Satyanarain Yadav on 22 April
2004 by a Special Task Force in Gaya. 33
On 26 April 2004, Peoples’ War
cadres reportedly raided village Adai
under the Konch police station in Gaya
district and killed three persons including
Satendra Sharma and Baleshwar Sharma,
and injured two others. 34
On 29 December 2004, CPI (Maoist)
activists killed four persons including a
woman and blasted two houses at Mauri
village under Paliganj police station in
Patna district. 35
Even the Dalits whom the Naxalites
claim to represent were not spared. On 18
May 2004, the Naxalites reportedly killed
Sudhir Paswan, Vijay Paswan, Naga
Paswan and Uday Paswan and injured as
many at Lahsuna in Patna district. 36
38
On 18 August 2004, the Maoists
raided the office of the CPI-ML
(Liberation) at Paliganj Bazar in Patna
district and opened indiscriminate firing
killing four persons - Rajeshwar Mochi,
head of Paliganj block, Mandip Goswamy,
the village chief, Jagdeo Prasad and Shiv
Dani Yadav, secretary of the party’s
Paliganj office. The Maoists also
kidnapped another party activist
Baleshwar Mahato. 37
IV. Atrocities against the Dalits
The Dalits faced all forms of
discrimination from the denial of
minimum wages to the denial of entry to
places of worship, land grabbing and
executions. Any protest by them may
warrant branding them as “Naxalites” or
“Maoists”.
Dalit labourers in Badki Akona,
Bandhuganj, Chandaura and Maniama in
the Ghosi region of Jehanabad district
have been given a meager daily wage of
two kg of rice or wheat and half kg of sattu
(gram powder). Anybody who demands a
higher wage can be declared a Naxalite
and hounded both by the police and the
Ranvir Sena. Labourers reportedly even do
not enjoy the freedom to migrate to other
parts in search of better wages as most of
them remain tied to individual landowners
by what is called Daskathia system. Under
this system, a local practice in Jehanabad,
a landowner grants 10 katha (a little less
than half acre) of land to a labourer who
cultivates it and keeps the harvest. In
return, he has to be always ready to work