People's Democracy

 KUSHINAGAR

Unprovoked Firing Claims Four Lives 

Subhashini Ali

PEOPLE in the northern states, specially UP and Bihar, are often accused of not being interested in issues connected with development, employment and progress. In this way, they are held responsible not only for the lack of development and the increasingly miserable conditions of life that they endure but also for caste-based and communal-based politics. The reality is actually quite different.

 On October 10, a joint AIDWA and CPI(M) delegation visited the hamlet of Devrada Pipra in Kushinagar district of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. Dinanath Yadav, Pushottam Tiwari (CPI-M), Malti Devi (AIDWA) and Subhashini Ali were members of the delegation. The hamlet is situated on the side of a road that ends at the river bank. There is no bridge across the river and villagers on both sides have been agitating for its construction for the last several years. Life is especially difficult for the villagers across the river who have to walk for miles before they can get to any kind of road at all and, after that, have to travel nearly 150 kilometers to reach Gorakhpur which is the main railway junction of the area. For the last 6 years, one of the villagers, Lalji Misra, a very popular 'baba' of the area, has been sitting on hunger strike in support of the villagers' demand. He is not a religious preacher but just someone who has left his home and is involved in the welfare of the people. On each occasion, the administration has intervened with vague promises and pressurised him to call off his hunger strike. This year, the rains were especially heavy and the problems of the people even more acute than usual. So, on September 28, he built himself a platform overhanging the river and went on hunger strike again. A banner with 'JAN SEVA SAMITI' written on it was hung on the side of the platform. When we visited the spot, it was very faded but still hanging there.

On October 4, after 8.00 p m, the district magistrate and superintendent of police arrived with a police force and told Misra to end his hunger strike. He replied that this time he would not be taken in by false promises and said that he would end his strike only when the construction of the bridge was started. After all attempts to convince him had failed, the administration started using force. There is no electricity in this area but, just on the river bank, there was a Durga Pandal that was lit by a generator and there was a large crowd of people around it. The police turned off the generator and, in the dark, tried to forcibly remove Misra. The youngsters around resisted this effort and there was some brick-batting. After this, the police started beating people with lathis. In the chaos that ensued, the police fired four shots at point-blank range. One 12 years old boy who had been selling peanuts, died on the spot; a young man who had come to visit his sister who lived just adjacent to the Durga Pandal was left bleeding on the road and, because there was no way that he could be taken for medical help, soon died. Another young man also died and the fourth reached his home, bleeding profusely, and died there later that night. The firing took place just at the time that the BSP-BJP government was replaced by Mulayam Singh. Unfortunately, the BJP was able to make some political capital by organising a dharna by its prominent leaders at the spot where the firing had taken place. The local MP (BJP) then promised to build the bridge from his MP fund and Lalji Misra withdrew his hunger strike. The chief minister also acted firmly, suspending the DM and SP and arresting the constrable allegedly responsible for the firing.

Our delegation visited the small, miserable hut where Reshma lives with her husband Khajanchi. On hearing of her illness, her brother Ram Milan had arrived to visit her just a few minutes before he was killed. Her widowed mother, ironically named Sukhi, was also there. They are all desperately poor and belong to the Dom (SC) caste. They have no land and live by making baskets from bamboo fibre. None of them has a ration card of any kind and Sukhi has never received a widow's pension. Ram Milan had been married recently but his wife had still not left her parental home. She had become a widow before attaining puberty.

The 12 years old boy, Nandu Gupta, who was killed, belongs to the Teli (OBC) community. His mother wept as she told us that her husband is bed-ridden and Nandu used to support his family by doing odd jobs like selling peanuts. They had no ration cards either.

The other two men who were killed, Chhotelal and Joginder, were both Noniyas (SC) and landless. Chhotelal had three daughters and Joginder had been married just six months before this incident. No one in their families had a ration card. Not one of those killed or any member of their families was literate.

The joint delegation assured the bereaved families and the villagers who had collected on the spot that if the bridge construction was not started, the local units of the party and organisations like the AIDWA would also join their agitation. They also asked the administration to provide jobs to one member of each bereaved family.