Wrongful Arrest of Poor People Demanding Land in Bihar

CPIML State Secretary Kunal said on 26 June 2020 that the BJP-JDU government in Bihar is in reality a government that runs a bulldozer over the poor and throws leaders who raise their voice for the poor into jail by slapping false cases against them. In the most recent instance, 5 people including CPIML Khagariya District Secretary Arun Das have been sent to jail for organizing a struggle to settle the poor in huts on gairmajrua land which has been illegally captured by dominant sections.

A State level CPIML team visited Khagariya on 26 June and organized a mass march against this incident at the Gogri Sub-Divisional office. The team comprised Beguserai District Secretary Diwakar Kumar, Subhash Singh, Abhay Verma, Indradev Ram, Deepak Kumar and others.

25 bighas of land in Itahari village at Vasudev Panchayat in Gogri Block has been captured illegally by Niranjan Singh, Sachida Jha, Udaykant Jha and other dominant section members. The CO has appealed to the ADM to dispossess them of this illegal possession, but the matter remains unresolved so far. The CPIML has been demanding since long that this land should be freed from the dominant forces and distributed among the poor, but the District administration is not considering applications made even by their own officials. Comrade Arun Das had met the BDO and SDO several times in this regard, but the District administration took no action.

Finally, seeing the lax attitude of the administration, the CPIML took initiative on its own to settle the poor on this land; on 25 June 500 huts of homeless poor were put up on this land. Instead of protecting the rights of the poor, Gogri Thana sided with the dominant forces and arrived at the spot and arrested 5 persons including Arun Das, Subhash Das, Bijo Das, Robin Das and Ramvilas Das. Arun Das fell during the arrest and has suffered a fracture in his arm.

A large number of angry people from poor and oppressed communities led by CPIML gheraoed the SDO Gogri to protest against this incident. As the SDO was absent, they talked to the official in charge of land and asked why the administration is refusing to act when the CO has already recommended cancellation of the dominant force’s possession of the land in question.

CPIML leaders said that all the leaders have been wrongfully arrested. They should be released immediately and the land in question should be distributed among the poor without delay.