265 families of the mahadalit community have been living in Kataya Musahari of Biraul panchayat (Darbhanga district) for the past 45 years. At present there are 25 Indira Awas houses, 12 hand pumps and 45 toilets in this Tola. This land used to be in the name of the Ram Janaki temple whose sewait Rambahadur Gupta is now no more. The poor-mahadalits have about 30 bighas of the temple land. In the new survey this land has been entered in the name of Sri Sri 108 Ram Janaki Mahadev. The grandson of Rambahadur Gupta’s brother Shyam Bahadur Gupta has staked a false claim to this land. These feudal forces used money and muscle power to pressurize the Biraul block officials to displace the poor-mahadalits and give them possession. The matter went up to the High Court but the mahadalits, being unorganized, could not put up their case effectively. The HC ruled in favour of the feudal forces, proving the extent to which our courts are anti-poor.
On 9 July the administration resorted to force and started forcible eviction of the mahadalits, during which Jagmaya Devi was killed and 4 people were injured. However, the insensitive block officials maintained that Jagmaya Devi was not killed by police oppression but died of an illness. The administration did not even conduct a post-mortem on Jagmaya Devi.
The CPI(ML) Darbhanga district committee has planned to file an appeal in the High Court in this matter. Protests were held at all block HQs on 17 July 2016 demanding proper compensation and government job for Jagmaya Devi’s kin, a high level enquiry into the attack by the administration on the Tola, land parchas for all poor-mahadalits, along with other demands. The effigy of the Biraul SDO was burnt at the protest which led by district Secretary Com. Baidnath Yadav.
