'RJD men targeted as political agenda spurs anti-Maoist ops'

On Bihar-Jharkhand borders: Case-1: Kamlesh Yadav of Akauni village in Palamu is accused of blowing up a school building in Harihargunj on December 24, 2010. He is a close aide of RJD MLA from Hussainabad Sanjay Singh Yadav and says that on the day of the incident, he was with the MLA in a programme and was falsely implicated. "I was with the officer-in-charge of Harihargunj police station during the Republic day celebrations of 2011 and was not an accused at that time.Police included my name later because I am a RJD supporter," he said.
Case-2: Rambilas Sahu of Arvi village under Dumaria police station of Gaya district was arrested along with 59 family members who arrived to participate in his mother's last rites. After allegedly being tortured by police, cases were lodged against six of them and rest were released over a period of three-four days. During this incident, Preeti Gupta wife of Srawan Kumar (nephew of Rambilas Sahu) was arrested as she happened to be the the wife of the zonal commander of the CPI Maoist.
Case-3: Nagina Yadav of village Mahulania under Dumaria PS of Gaya district has been accused of forcibly closing Maigra bazaar during a call for bandh by Maoists. He claims that he was in his village during the time of the incident and was punished for being an RJD supporter.
Case-4: Foolchand Bhuinya and Awdhesh Bhuinya of Kenuatanr village were killed in a firing which villagers claim to have been opened by policemen. Mahadalit Commission in Bihar probed in to the matter and found discrepancies in cases filed against these two after their killing. Local leader of RJD Roshan Bhuinya who contested and lost the 2010 assembly elections against Uday narayan Choudhary claims that these two villagers hail from the region where RJD has a strong hold.
District council president Laddu Khan, who is also accused in cases related to Maoist activities, says RJD workers and leaders are being targeted by JD(U) leader Uday Narayan Choudhary. "He won by a narrow margin and wants the RJD to be suppressed by unlawful use of police machinery," he said.
Equipped with a long list of cases in which RJD workers and leaders have been booked by the Bihar police, spokesperson for the Madhya Zonal committee of the Maoists, Paramjeet, denied links with the RJD. "We are against 'vote-baaj' (vote-seeking) political parties and there is no question of supporting any one or the other party," he said. Threatening Choudhary of dire consequences for using government machinery to implicate innocent villagers, Paramjeet cited examples in which the Maoists have targeted RJD leaders for their misdeeds.
"Had we been supporters of RJD, we would not have held RJD leader Nehaluddin captive or would have set fire to the RJD office of Bindi Yadav in Gurua block of Gaya district," he said Nayyar Hasnain Khan, inspector general of the Magadh Range of Bihar Police conceded that after receiving complaints from the villagers over the past couple of months he went for a personal review of the cases and found at least four to five of them being false. "During the course of the review, I was convinced that certain sections of UAPA or 17 Criminal Law Amendment Act were not proper to be clamped in some of them and in some of the cases there was lack of evidence," he said. When asked if this was motivated by political vendetta, Khan refused to comment and agreed that certain local issues obviously play behind lodging of such cases. "We have given directions to the lower rung police officials to be more sensitive in dealing with the cases in Maoist- affected zones so that the Maoists do not get a chance to perpetrate their anti-police and anti-government agenda," he said.
JD (U) which has carved a niche in Bihar is also not willing to invite embarrassment on part of some of its leaders. State president Bihar JD (U) Vashishtha Narayan Singh said, "We are busy with the rally preparations but once our leaders are free we have to look into the complaints of the villagers from our district unit," he said.
This is the third part of a 4-part series on Maoist insurgency along the Bihar-Jharkhand border and how it affects the people living in these regions.