Samastipur has recently witnessed a gruesome incident of rape and murder of a minor girl from an oppressed caste by elements belonging to a locally dominant and BJP-backed feudal-criminal gang. This is the latest incident in a series of several instances of violence against the socially oppressed. During the regime of the last BJP-JDU government, Ramsevak Ram, a sanitation worker, was killed in police custody. In another incident in Adharpur, a mob led by on organization named Hindu Putra had set three Muslim houses on fire and lynched three members of a family including a woman school teacher to death in broad daylight. The Muslim population of that village is still displaced. Earlier in Sarai Ranjan, a JDU activist Khaleel Rizvi had been kidnapped and lynched to death.
In the latest instance of such violence, a minor Dalit/EBC girl, Swati, was gang raped and murdered in Satanpur Panchayat of Ujiarpur block by local criminals patronised by feudal forces and the liquor mafia and having close association with the BJP. The local BJP MP Nityanand Rai is known as a powerful don is currently a Minister of State for Home Affairs in the Modi cabinet. On the night of 23rd September, when the girl was all alone only with her nine-year-old younger brother, she was assaulted and murdered. While her mother, family members and neighbours all allege gangrape and murder, the local police has been trying to present it as a case of suicide. Despite marks of brutality all over her body the Ujiarpur police station did not bother to get a viscera report.
A CPIML team promptly reached the site, spoke to all concerned and demanded arrest of the accused named by Swati's mother. A protest meeting was held on 26 September at Satanpur Chowk demanding viscera test. But the administration refused to listen to the demands. Again on October 1, a protest meeting was held at Malti Chowk and the demand for the arrest of the accused was raised. CPIML Block secretary Ganga Prasad Paswan, who was leading an effigy burning protest against the in charge of the police station, was attacked and injured by goons of a liquor mafia gang.
With the police refusing to take any action and trying to hush up this heinous crime, after several local protests the CPIML gave a call for demonstration outside the Ujiarpur Police Station on 9 October. What happened on that day revealed the disturbing nexus and collusion between BJP-backed criminals and goons and the Ujiarpur Police Station. With the connivance of the police, hundreds of lathi-wielding BJP goons had assembled in the premises of the police station waiting to attack the CPIML procession.
Showing great restraint and application of mind, CPIML leaders including District Secretary Comrade Umesh Kumar, CPIML candidate from Warisnagar in 2020 Assembly elections Comrade Phoolbabu Singh and former MLA and Chairperson of Bihar Women's Commission Comrade Manju Prakash, stopped the procession a little before the police station and turned it into a protest meeting. Yet in the presence of the police some comrades including Comrade Manju Prakash were manhandled. A delegation of Party leaders comprising Party MLAs Satyadeo Ram and Gopal Ravidas and AIPWA leaders Shashi Yadav and Manju Prakash met the DM and SP of Samastipur on 14 October and demanded justice for Swati. The delegation demanded suspension of the DSP and the local police station in-charge, measures to ensure safety of the victim's family, public disclosure of the post-mortem report public, payment of proper compensation to the victim's family and a high-level inquiry into the whole matter. A powerful mass demonstration was also held in Samastipur on these demands on 17 October.
Ever since being ousted from power in Bihar, the BJP is working overtime to create trouble. A section of the administration and police are clearly hand in glove with the BJP. The assurances and policy pronouncements made by the new government - like no eviction without prior rehabilitation, better delivery of public services and responsive governance - are being repeatedly violated on the ground and protests are being met with administrative highhandedness and police repression. CPIML is determined to face this situation with consistent mass initiative and intervention against every injustice and strong support to every just demand of the people.
