A rooftop killing, writing on the wall and a revenge attack that left six dead in Madhya Pradesh village

Those killed on Friday have been identified as Gajender Singh Tomar, the 60-year-old patriarch of the family, his sons Satyaprakash and Sanju, and daughters-in-law Keshkumari, Babli and Madhu Kumari. Nine of the Tomars, including Gajender’s son Virender, were injured in the attack.

Nine people — all members of their neighbour Dhir Singh’s family — have been named in the case. While two of them, Dhir Singh and his relative Rajo Devi, are under arrest, the others are absconding.

According to the Morena police, a dispute over dumping agricultural waste at a ground meant for a school had led to Gajender’s son Virender and a distant relative Ranjit allegedly gunning down two men from Dhir Singh’s family.

Sources said that as the dispute escalated that day, the Tomars had fired from their rooftop at the two from Dhir Singh’s family who stood below — a decade later, it would be the exact spot, in front of the haveli, where six of the Tomar family would be killed on Friday.

According to the FIR, the Tomars, including several children, had boarded a tempo with their belongings and reached Lepa village at 9.30 am. Waiting for them were the accused persons — Dhir Singh, his sons Monu and Ramu carrying wooden sticks; Bhupendra and Ajit, armed with Mouser rifles; Rajjo Devi holding a fistful of cartridges; Sonu and Shamu holding country made pistols; and Surajbhan with an axe.

The Tomars’ house in Lepa village, Morena, was ransacked and stripped bare since the entire family left for Ahmedabad a decade ago (Express)

Lepa village is part of Chambal division, a region once infamous for its guns and dacoits. With a population of about 1,700, it’s barely 3 km from Bhidausa village, home to Paan Singh Tomar, the national-champion-turned-dacoit whose life was captured in an award-winning Bollywood film.

“My father, grandfather and uncles know how to fire a weapon just like everyone else in my village. We did not come with weapons, we just wanted to return home. If we had rifles, things would be different,” says Ranjana, 17, Gajender’s granddaughter. On Friday, as the attackers dispatched bullets from their Mouser rifles, killing Ranjana’s mother Keshkumari as she tried to shield her husband, the 17-year-old had pulled out her phone to record the attack. Ranjana’s mobile phone is now part of the police’s evidence.

Lepa village is part of Chambal division, a region once infamous for its guns and dacoits (Express)

Sitting outside the haveli, surrounded by grieving women, Ranjana says the 2013 incident would change their lives forever.

Fearful of the consequences, around 20 members of Gajender’s family had fled to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, where he and the other male members worked odd jobs, including as security guards, while the women worked as thread cutters in small garment units. None of the children in the family, including Ranjana and her cousins, ever went to school.

However, the 2013 case caught up with Ranjana’s father Virender, who worked as a rickshaw puller in Ahmedabad, and he was arrested in 2021.

“After my father’s arrest, my mother and I worked overtime in factories earning Rs 5,000 a month. But then we lost our jobs during the lockdown and things got desperate… That’s when Dhir Singh’s family reached out to us for a compromise,” says Ranjana.

Cobwebs snake up the walls of the two-room haveli and wild growth fill the courtyard

Her grandmother, Gajender’s wife Kusuma, 57, said that it was at Morena’s Ambah court, where some of her family members had to appear for the 2013 murder trial, that Dhir Singh’s family allegedly struck a deal: they would turn hostile in exchange for Rs 5 lakh and a home.

“My husband kept turning down their offer. But after the lockdown, it became difficult to earn any money. We have 11 women in the family and had to marry the girls off. Going back home seemed to be the only way out,” she says.

Ranjana’s cousin Shivani Tomar, 15, lost both her parents in Friday’s attack.

On the walls of one of the rooms on the top floor is a scribble: “Ranjit ki maut nishchit hai (Ranjit’s death is assured).”

“I was four years old when my family left for Gujarat. My father lost his right leg in a train accident and my mother ran the household. She used to earn Rs 250 every day cutting thread. The pandemic made it extremely difficult for us. My grandparents and parents wanted to get me and my cousins married. They said we need to come back home for that. But I wish we hadn’t,” she says.

Following Friday’s killings, multiple teams of the Madhya Pradesh Police have been scouring the state to arrest the seven absconding accused.

ASP (Morena) Raisingh Narwariya told The Indian Express that the investigation has found that none of the nine accused owned a gun license. “We need to recover the weapon of offence, the accused did not have a gun license. There are around 27,000 weapons registered in Morena. Usually, two to four incidents of firing take place in a month over property disputes. But in my two-year tenure, this is the first time such a murder has taken place,” he said.