People's Democracy

 We Want Justice For Bechu Musahar

Suneet Chopra

THE struggle for justice for the downtrodden and those who fight for their cause is a long drawn out one that has to be conducted determinedly without easing up the effort. 

Bechu Musahar was an AIAWU activist of Rehkari village under Madihan Thana of Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh. He was a man of principle, who preferred to earn a living by plying a rickshaw rather than work for the landlords of his village as he was constantly taking up issues that affected agricultural labour. 

In mid-July 1998, when a landlord of his village began to eye a dalit woman who was called Kairi, she complained to Bechu who warned the landlord on July 14 to keep away from her. On July 15, a man called Kesa Musahar (now charged by the police for Bechu’s murder) came to his house, which was near his fields and a small grove of guava trees and bamboos that he had grown on some 2 hectares of land he possessed as bhumidhari or ancestral land. He lived here with his wife, Amrvati Devi and three small children. 

Bechu went with Kesa and was never seen again. For a long time Kesa Musahar and Anil, Rajendra and Kailash Patel, the other accused in the case against whom no action has been taken, kept hopes alive in Amravati that her husband was out on work, so a delay occurred in her reporting her husband missing. On April 4, 1999, his skeleton was found by fishermen in a pond in the locality, weighed down by stones. The bones were tied up in the lungi he had been wearing when he left.

The people of the village immediately got ready to carry the bones to Mirzapur for identification when a police posse led by D K Singh, the local SHO, attacked them and seized the bones. But the intervention of the local SP, Badri Prasad Singh, ensured that the bones were recovered, but he was transferred to prevent the case being followed up properly.

On June 14, a petition was sent to the NHRC by me on behalf of AIAWU, N K Shukla on behalf of AIKS, Mohammad Salim (DYFI) Brinda Karat (AIDWA), Abani Roy (Agragami Kisan Sabha), Har Dev Singh (AILU), Tapan Sen (CITU), P K Kodiyan (BKMU) and Vijoo Krishnan (JNUSU), asking that the case be taken up by the Commission. The complaint was taken up by the NHRC, which sent a team of investigators to the spot and also ensured that his remains would be sent for DNA testing to Hyderabad.

The police, however, continued to ensure justice would not be done. They allowed the accused Kesa to escape. A few days after the discovery of the bones, Kairi was taken to the police station at 2 p m and was not allowed to return till 10 a m the next day. She has now fled to Madhupur. Kesa, who was finally arrested, was let off on bail. In fact, even though a report appeared in the local papers on December 28, 2000 that the DNA tests confirmed the skeleton was that of Bechu’s, the IG police of the area denied it was so.

More pressure was put on his wife who was kidnapped from her home and threatened at gunpoint to change her evidence. She refused to do so and had to flee her village, as a result of which her house is in ruins and her land has been illegally occupied by a tout of the local police who has since been forced to give in writing that he had illegally occupied the land after the matter was raised before the SDM concerned at the Adivasi convention of October 29, 2003.

On November 29, Pyarelal Jaiswal, Mithai Lal, Arvind, Birju Singh Suresh, Chinta and I gathered at the village with local comrades. Terror was still rife as those owning tractors were afraid of ploughing the land. But with the help of the Lekhpal of Madihan and two armed policemen, Amravati Devi was given back her land, which we dug up with hoes and marked with stones in the presence of the Lekhpal. 

However the battle is far from won. A powerful support base of AIAWU must be developed for Amravati to come back to her husband’s village and live safely. Constant pressure must be put on the police to proceed with the case against his murderers, including the three ringleaders whose instrument Kesa Musahar was. Finally, government protection must be given to Amravati and also aid to rebuild her destroyed house and begin life afresh. The AIAWU calls on all its units in Uttar Pradesh to collect funds for the rebuilding of Amravati’s home and remit the money to the state centre so that the work of bringing justice to Bechu Musahar moves one step forward.