A Villager who demanded food grain in flood relief from the local mukhiya pati was allegedly beaten up and had acid poured into his eyes.His eyes bandaged, 29-year-old Shiv Kumar Sahni lies in his bed at the Darbhanga Medical College & Hospital. A landless sharecropper from the flood-ravaged Tomaria village in Madhubani district, he runs a small tea shop with his father, and has a wife and two daughters.Dr Bhupendra Prasad, the ophthalmologist attending on him, says, “His two corneas are badly damaged. It’s difficult to say if he’ll get back his eyesight. It won’t be surprising if he goes blind.”Last Tuesday, Shiv Kumar had walked up to the house of Kapeshwar Mukhia — who operates as panchayat head in proxy for his wife Rajkumari Devi — and demanded his share of food grain announced by the government in flood relief.The enraged mukhiya pati (as husbands of mukhiyas running the show on behalf of wives are known) and his men first beat him and then poured acid in his eyes and mouth. Like the Bhagalpur incident, in this case too a criminal angle has come to light. Shiv Kumar faces a couple of criminal cases, including that of murder. He has also served a jail term. However, there is no caste angle: both the mukhia and the victim belong to the backward mallah community. Both sides have filed FIRs.Kapleshwar Mukhia’s FIR alleges that Shiv Kumar had pointed a pistol at him while demanding relief, whereupon people pounced on him and beat him up. It makes no mention of the acid attack.However, Shiv Kumar refutes the allegations. “Had I possessed a pistol, I wouldn’t have met with this fate,” he said. The victim’s unlettered father Ramdev Sahni has said in his FIR that his son had used a pistol to demand relief, but sources say this could owing to coercion or the influence wielded by the mukhia pati, who walks free.Said Inspector-General Ratan Lal Kanaujia, “I’ve asked the SP to investigate and take action.” Madhubani SP Amrit Raj could not be contacted for comment.
