Ranabir Sena strikes again; 12 massacred

After the massacre, the Sena announced their hand in the killings. A spokesman said they had revenged the killing of 34 upper caste Bhumihars in Senari.

According to an eyewitness, nearly 100 Sena goons surrounded the villages and attacked two village ghettoes. In the firing, three women and a 11-year-old girl were also killed. Though the Chief Minister described the incident a well-planned conspiracy for defaming the State Government, the sources maintain that the State Government was aware of the Sena moves.

Like past incident, the Sena men did not go in for outright killing of the Dalits and most backwards. Sena sources further revealed that Jahil Bigaha, Khagari Bigha of Sindhauli near Belaganj, have been the hunting ground for the Maoist Communist Centre MCC extremists and they have been using these villages as their base.

Sena at their recent meetings, in a major shift in its tactics, decided to target the Yadavs instead of their traditional rivals the Dalits and most backwards. Yet another Naxalite outfit People8217;s War Group PWG has also amended its approach and now the Yadavs are its main enemy.

According to the intelligence sources, both the Sena and PWG have decided to aim at affluent Yadavs in the central Bihar region. The intelligence sources further maintain that directives have been issued to identify the Yadav-dominated villages and adopt precautionary measures.

According to the sources, Senari massacre in which 34 upper caste Bhumihars were killed was carried out by the Yadavs of MCC. MCC, sources say, mainly banks on the support of the Yadavs and which is why on several occasions it has extended support to Laloo Prasad.

In fact, the relationship between the MCC and Laloo Prasad has been questioned in the Bihar Assembly on several occasions by the Opposition parties. During the 1996 Assembly elections, some key MCC functionaries even shared platform with the RJD chief.

There is a general feeling that Senari massacre owed its genesis more to the caste consideration than the ideological or social compulsion. The Sena and PWG feel that MCC has been trying to organise and consolidate the Yadavs8217; votes simply by pursuing the caste lines.

The intelligence sources reveal that Sena, mainly comprising of Bhumihars and Rajputs, is now more eager to take on Yadavs, for the simple reason that Yadavs were mustering resources to emerge as the dominant social factor in the region. They are trying to replace the traditional landlords and emerge as the neo-landlords and in their gameplan they were using the Harijans, Dalits and the backwards.

The intelligence sources are, however, quite sceptical of the situation and feel that the two militant castes, Bhumihars and Yadavs, entering into direct clash would simply witness the worst kind of massacres in the region in the future.