Another good-news story from Bihar has a tragic, brutal end

With the police and local administration watching yesterday, 15,000 residents of Sahuri, in Begusarai district, lynched four of the six suspects in Yadav’s murder—even ‘‘snatching’’ two of them from a police station where they had been kept in custody.

No arrests have been made so far.

The villagers chased the killers, caught two of them and they told the mob that it was Jugal Kishore Singh, a landlord and moneylender, who gave them the contract to kill Yadav, according to the police. They killed them and then set ablaze Singh’s house. The mob then moved on to the police station, snatched two of the ‘‘killers’’ who were in police custody and lynched them. Two of the accused are still at large.

Says Alok Raj, SP Begusarai, ‘‘The people who were lynched by the mob are contract killers wanted in several criminal cases. We have every reason to believe that Jugal Kishore Singh and his grandson Bablu Singh are the main conspirators in the murder of the mukhiya. Bablu Singh is himself a notorious criminal wanted in several kidnapping cases.’’

Yadav was the fifth elected representative of a local body murdered in the last three years in Begusarai district alone for similar reasons. Of the more than 8,000 village mukhiyas in Bihar, many are criminals, and the rare ones who do their work honestly are targeted and often killed.

An illiterate till 42 years of age who would go on to become the face of the literacy campaign in the area, Yadav had stopped the mafia from acquiring poor villagers’ land through mortgage. On Tuesday morning, six men shot eight bullets into him.

Yadav had changed the lives of more than 30,000 people in 25 villages in the area, and people 4 km away from Sahuri came to attend his funeral. ‘‘But for him I would have lost my land,’’ said Noor Mohammad of Sagarpur. ‘‘He saved our livelihood and paid with life.’’ Kapil Dev Prasad of Badepura village was mourning alongside.

Located in the plains of Kosi, Balan and Gandak rivers, these villages are flood-prone. Almost every monsoon leaves the poor in dire straits, forcing them to mortgage lands to eke out two meals. Unable to pay back the mortgage, most eventually lose their lands.

After he became the mukhiya in 2001, Yadav broke the chain. Utilising available government funds for flood relief and moblising private resources, he ensured that villagers didn’t have to turn to moneylenders for help.

During last year’s floods he bought five boats on loan and used them for relief operations and to distribute food. ‘‘He achieved what no government could,’’ says Ram Chandra Prasad, SDO of the area.

‘‘He told us all that under no condition should we mortgage our lands. He organised means for us to see through tough times,’’ says Kapil Prasad.

His own personal life was a triumph against odds. At the age of 42, Yadav joined an adult literacy camp. Convinced of the importance of education, he later became the literacy campaigner for 25 villages. ‘‘He was our backbone,’’ says S.N. Azad, secretary of the District Literacy Mission. He even threatened to stop ration supplies to families who did not send children to schools.

Yadav led other campaigns as well, like convincing villagers that it was wrong to travel ticketless on trains in a state where it’s taken for granted. ‘‘At the local railway station, anyone caught without ticket had to apologise to the entire village,’’ says a resident.

Before he became a mukhiya, Yadav had organised labourers to get them proper wages from employers.

Once he became the mukhiya, Yadav, who was associated with ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal, combined his political powers with his social commitment. ‘‘He would not only allot Indira Awas Yojana houses to the deserving poor but even supply bricks from his kiln at reduced prices and often on credit,’’ says a resident. ‘‘He walked around villages and told them ‘See how I struggle because of a large family of five children. Do family planning and have small families’.’’

And when he said that, he meant it. At the time of his death—by when he had taken many out of the debt trap—Yadav himself owed others Rs 2 lakh.