People's Democracy

UTTAR PRADESH

Mass Protest Against Dalit Killings

THE Sub-Divisional Magistrate’s (SDM) office at Chakia in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh was the scene of a mass protest of over 3000 people against the lawlessness of law-enforcing authorities determined to allow criminal land mafias to illegally seize some 12 bighas of ceiling surplus land in Shahpur village by force of arms while looking the other way.

Some 10 years back, the district committee of the CPI(M) in its campaign to unearth ceiling surplus and other lands to be distributed to the landless and dalits came upon this so-called disputed plot which has not been farmed for nearly two decades.

The landlord whose ceiling surplus it was, had transferred it illegally through a benami transaction to his brother-in-law, Virendra Kumar, a resident of Bihar. As it was under cultivation by dalits, Pandey feared it would be taken over, so the land was allowed to remain fallow. In 1990, dalits once more began to farm it and were in possession of it, but Pandey managed to prevent farming on it. In 1998, the dalits and Pandey came to an agreement after a struggle against his grabbing other lands elsewhere, under which he paid them a compensation of Rs 500 per person and offered them 12 biswas of land if they stopped farming their land. But much of this land is illegally held and even Pandey’s house is built on land that was grabbed from the common holdings (Gaon Samaj) of the village. So when the brother-in-law of Pandey died without making a will, the landless people in this village which had been electing CPI(M) pradhans for a long time, began an agitation for the land to be distributed to them.

A court case is under way but despite this Pandey has manufactured a fake will, got courts to change hearing dates secretly and has given false ages for his heirs. When he failed to achieve his ends through fraud, he launched an attack from nearby Usuri village with the help of 40 or 50 armed gangsters of the Sri Ram Sena of Bihar and the local land mafia who came with a convoy of armed gunmen on five tractors from Usuri village to Shahpur at about 10.30 am to 11 am on November 5, firing wildly as they came. When they reached the dalit basti, they began to fire recklessly abusing the dalits and shouting at them. The village people rushed out to see what had happened and they fired at the gathered dalits, two of whom were killed. One was Triloki, the husband of Kumari Devi, a young widow of 35 with no means of support now. The other was a 55 year old woman, a grandmother, Gunja Devi, whose grandson too was shot at and bardly hurt. Many more would have been killed had one of the leading attackers, Bhanu Pratap Pandey, who picked up a stone to throw at the dalits from behind a tractor, not been accidentally shot from behind by one of his own men. Seeing him fall, and not being sure of who had shot him, the attackers retreated.

The shameful thing is that the SDM, the wife of a former BSP MLA, had connived with the newly elected BSP pradhan to ensure she would be on leave when the attack was launched and the land would be seized by the attackers. This she had to do as the police refused to help the mafia take over the disputed land without written permission from the SDM or DM. This could not be done as the land is government land and would have meant that the officials were openly allowing government land to be taken over by illegal occupants. Hence the subterfuge was resorted to. And many more dalits would have been killed had the attackers not got confused over the death of their own leader and rushed him back for medical help.

The meeting was addressed by Mehboob Zahedi, AIKS joint secretary and Sunil Khan, both CPI(M) members of parliament, and Suneet Chopra, CPI(M) central committee member and AIAWU joint secretary. Among others who addressed the meeting were Dina Nath Singh, state secretariat member of the CPI(M) and secretary of AIKS and Bachan Singh former district secretary  and a state committee member of the CPI(M). The district secretary of Chandauli and AIAWU state vice president, Sri Prasad, presided over the meeting. The speakers called for the land to be distributed to the dalits who had been farming it, compensation to the families of those killed and the injured, the suspension and transfer of the SDM and DM, the taking back of false cases and release of victims arrested on the basis of false charges of the attackers and for the arrest and punishment of the murderers and those who aided them.

The comrades visited the site of the crime and ascertained the facts. Earlier, the UP state secretary and CPI(M) central committee member, Dr S P Kashyap, had also visited the area, ascertained the facts, and had brought the matter to the notice of the UP chief minister for action. The rally determined to carry on the struggle for justice until their demands were met in full. (INN)