The Laxmanpur Bathe massacre

Laxmanpur Bathe lies on the bank of the Sone river, about 90 km from Patna. In 1997 it was in Jehanabad district; it is now in Arwal.^3,5 Its Dalit families, of the Rajvanshi, Paswan, Ravidas, Mahto and Mallah castes, worked land they did not own.⁸

On the night of 1 December 1997, armed men of the Ranvir Sena crossed the river and killed 58 of them.^3,4,8 A Patna High Court order of 1999 counts three more: fishermen on the river's southern bank, whose throats were cut, for 61 in all.² It was the largest massacre Bihar had seen.^3,8 The President of India, K. R. Narayanan, called it a national shame.^4,8

Wages, and a private army

In central Bihar, Human Rights Watch reported in 1999, most Dalit households owned no land, land reform had never been carried out, and farm labourers were often paid not in money but in as little as two kilograms of rice for a full day's work.¹ Since the 1970s, left groups had organised the labourers, among other things to demand the legal minimum wage, and landlords had raised private armies against them.¹

The Ranvir Sena was founded in 1994 by Bhumihars, a landowning upper caste, in Bhojpur district.¹ Before Laxmanpur Bathe it had already been implicated in killings in several villages, Bathani Tola among them.¹ The left had organised in Bathe, a person quoted by Human Rights Watch said, because people were so poor they could not feed themselves after a full day's work, and when they asked for more wages they were beaten down.¹

Reports differ on why this village. The Tribune wrote that the Sena targeted the labourers for sheltering an armed squad of Naxalites, the armed far-left groups the Sena was formed to fight.³ The Mooknayak wrote that the Sena called it revenge for the Bara massacre of 37 upper-caste men, with which, it says, the Dalits of Laxmanpur Bathe had no link.⁵ A few days before, a report quoted by Human Rights Watch says, the Sena had declared that it would soon make national and international headlines.¹

The night of 1 December

This section describes the killing of families in their homes, among them children and pregnant women, and records sexual violence.

The men came from the Bhojpur side of the river. They first killed the boatmen who had ferried them across, Forward Press reported, and there were more than 150 of them, carrying guns and blades.⁸ The first police report, given the next morning, also puts them at about 150.²

The sources give different hours. One survivor told Forward Press it began around 8.15 in the evening, while families were eating; the police report says 10.30 pm, and The Mooknayak 11 pm, adding that the attack went on for about three hours.^2,5,8 The men broke down doors and fired on whoever was inside.^1,2,5

Human Rights Watch, reporting in 1999, counted fourteen Dalit homes raided and 61 people killed: sixteen children, twenty-seven women and eighteen men.¹ Forward Press reported in 2020 that ten of the women were pregnant.⁸ Police records, IANS reported in 2013, show four families wiped out.⁶

Women told Human Rights Watch that girls of fifteen and younger were raped and mutilated before they were killed.¹

As they left, survivors said, the men shouted "Ranvir Baba ki jai".^2,8 The police came at ten the next morning, an eyewitness told Forward Press, and the Chief Minister, Rabri Devi, came too. The bodies were taken for cremation in tractor-trolleys.⁸

Among the adults killed, the sources we read name Jumhara Devi, Malti Devi, Channari Chaudhary, Shivkailash Chaudhary, Naresh Chaudhary, Ramniwas Chaudhary, Rampulis Mahto, Basanti Devi and Taregani Devi.^5,8 The names of all the dead are on the martyrs' memorial in the village; we do not name the children.

Sixteen years in court

A survivor's statement to the police the next morning named 26 men and listed 125 more as unknown. The magistrate added charges under the law against atrocities on Scheduled Castes and Tribes.²

The state government suspended the district's police chief and set up a special investigation team. It also set up a commission under Justice Amir Das, a retired High Court judge, to look into the Sena's political links.³ The next government, led by Nitish Kumar, wound the commission up.^6,8

The case reached the sessions court on 6 January 1999, PUDR reported, and on 7 October 1999 the High Court moved the trial from Jehanabad to Patna. It barely moved until the High Court stepped in again in late 2008. Charges were framed that December, against 44 people by IANS's count and 45 by PUDR's, and the court heard 91 witnesses.^3,4,6,7

On 7 April 2010, Additional District and Sessions Judge Vijay Prakash Mishra sentenced 16 men to death and 10 to life imprisonment. He acquitted 19 others by The Hindu's and IANS's count, 17 by The Tribune's. "We celebrated then as the verdict gave us hope for justice," Saryu Rajwar told IANS.^3,4,6

On 9 October 2013, a Division Bench of the Patna High Court, Justices V. N. Sinha and A. K. Lal, acquitted all 26. The prosecution witnesses, The Hindu reported the bench as ruling, were not reliable, and the accused deserved the benefit of the doubt.⁴ It was the third such acquittal in a Bihar massacre case, after Bathani Tola and Nagari Bazaar.^4,6 The CPI(ML) appealed to the Supreme Court in 2013, and PUDR reported in 2016 that an appeal by the State was pending there too.^7,8 In 2020, Forward Press reported, the appeal was still waiting to be heard.⁸

In 2015 the news site Cobrapost broadcast hidden-camera interviews with men of the Sena, some of whom the courts had acquitted. In them, The Quint reported, the men spoke of taking part in the massacre. What they said is not a court finding, and the acquittals were by then before the Supreme Court.¹⁰

In their words

Testimony, as published by the outlets named. We did not interview anyone, and we have not contacted the families (our rule until an account is released).

After the High Court's verdict, Binod Ram, a farm labourer, told IANS: "The poor like us cannot challenge it in the apex court. Where is money for this?"⁶

In 2020 Laxman Chaudhary told Forward Press that upper-caste men still taunted them: "when they could get away with 58 murders, how would a couple more matter?" "But then," he said, "we console ourselves that someday we will get justice."⁸

Who remembers, and how

Each family of the dead received Rs 2 lakh (about US$5,500 at 1997 rates) and the promise of a government job. Most got the jobs, Forward Press reported in 2020, and the houses are pucca now, built of brick; some families were still waiting.⁸

The CPI(ML) has been at the forefront of the campaign for justice. It built a martyrs' memorial, the shaheed smarak, in the village.⁸ The memorial carries the names of all the dead, The Mooknayak reported.⁵ When the acquittals came, the party called them shameful and demanded an investigation under the Supreme Court's supervision.^4,6

What is still unknown

We have not yet read the trial court's or the High Court's judgment, so this account names none of the accused; it will, with each one's exact status, once their names are checked against the court record.⁴ The sources disagree on the count of children, on the hour the attack began, and on how many men were killed on the river bank.^2,3,4,5,8 What the Amir Das Commission found has not been made public in any source we have.^6,8 Our latest source on the appeal is from 2020, when it had not yet been heard.⁸