Caste-Naxal massacre in Bihar tests Nitishs base

The incident occurred past midnight at Amausi Bahiyar diara,which can only be reached by crossing the rivers Kareh and Kosi,from Amba Icharua village,175 km east of Patna.

Villagers said 16 of the 17 people guarding an urad crop over 500 acres of the diara were shot dead by over 50 armed men,allegedly assisted by the Sadas (Musahars) of Amausi,the nearest village situated across the Kosi. Of the 16 dead,14 were Kurmis and two Koeris.

For the CM,the violence between these communities creates a particularly piquant challenge. It is uncomfortably close to home and not just because Nitish Kumar is himself a Kurmi. The Kurmis-Koeris count among the OBCs and the Musahars occupy the lowest rung among the Mahadalits. Both Kurmis and Musahars belong to the unique caste coalition that Nitish has attempted to stitch for himself.

The Mahadalit is a new category formalised by the Nitish administration,ostensibly for the purpose of addressing the special development needs of the most backward among Dalits 20 of Bihars 22 Dalit subcastes have been identified as Mahadalit by a commission set up by the Nitish government in August 2007.

When a team led by Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi reached the massacre site,an angry crowd shouted anti-government slogans,tried to attack Modis vehicle and heckled his ministerial colleagues.

DGP Anand Shankar said the killings seemed to be the result of a fight for possession of diara land. But he said the role of sympathisers of ultras cannot be ruled out. Security has been stepped up at Alauli and ten people have been detained for questioning.

LJP leader Ramvilas Paswan,who too reached the spot,called it an outrageous Naxal attack. In 2005,extremists had blown up a guest house of his brother Ramchandra Paswan at Chatal.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad said that Naxal violence had increased during the Nitish government rule and there was complete anarchy and chaos in Bihar.

At Amba Icharua,bodies had been placed on the Khagaria-Alauli road,the dead surrounded by their wailing kin. Though villagers blamed Maoists and their sympathisers,no pamphlets were found at the massacre site the Maoists usually leave notes which own up for the killings and warn others.

Villagers alleged that the Maurkahi outpost and Alauli police station personnel turned a deaf ear to their repeated pleas for patrolling in diara area. Bhairon Singh,whose 25-year-old son Ramji was among those killed,said: Like other villagers,my son also wanted to hold on to the land. He said members of 15 families used to stay on the diara to guard the crop. They lived in thatched structures.

Jaychand Singh lost two sons Ranjit (30) and Sanjit (25). The diara land did not mean anything to me. How long do we live with this Maoist terror? The government should do something, he said.

In New Delhi,Central government officials said the attack hardly fits into the pattern observed in Maoist violence in recent times. Maoist groups,they pointed out,refrained from killing villagers unless they suspected them of being police informers. And they rarely killed children in this case,four were killed.

We will be very surprised if this turns out to be a Naxal operation. The area is not known to be a Maoist stronghold. And the nature of the operation is very different from what the Naxalite groups are known for, a senior police official associated with operations against Naxalites told The Indian Express. With ENS from New Delhi