Senari accused acquittal: State, victims may move SC

A day after Patna High Court acquitted all the 13 accused in the 1999 Senari massacre case, a sense of shock and disbelief has gripped the Senari village and reopened the wounds of the few who survived the bloodbath

A day after Patna High Court acquitted all the 13 accused in the 1999 Senari massacre case, a sense of shock and disbelief has gripped the Senari village and reopened the wounds of the few who survived the bloodbath.

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The double bench of Patna High Court on Friday acquitted the accused for “want of sufficient evidence regarding their identity” in the massacre of Bihar’s Senari village where 34 upper caste men were killed.

The decision surprised the state government as well. Advocate General Lalit Kishor told media persons that the state government may challenge the verdict in the Supreme Court. The law department has also sought an advisory from Kishor.

The victims’ families are expected to file an appeal against the verdict after the certified order is out later this week. An angry Arun Sharma asked, “Then who killed 34 and injured five men in 1999?”

Senari since then has come out of the darkness with the village having motorable roads, electricity and other government facilities.

Sources said that even though the villagers are shocked by the court’s verdict, the cordial atmosphere prevails. “The anger is mostly against court, police and government in general,” said Babu Sharma.

However, it has opened the wounds once again.

Recounting the horror, 47-year-old Arjun Sharma who was 25-year-old at that time said, “I was standing at the door of my house along with brothers and cousins Suresh, Sachidanand, Naresh, Sheo Kumar, Vimlesh and Kavindra. The extremists, who were in police uniform, arrived there and they caught hold of Kavindra and Vimlesh and took them towards Thakurbadi. They killed them by cutting their throats.”

“The entire village is shocked with the verdict. The villagers are not ready to accept that the accused have been let off,” said villager Ajay Sharma, 54, who also lost his brother. He blamed the police and the state government for the acquittals. “The police did not file a strong charge sheet with solid evidence against them,” he alleged.

Ajay Kumar, 59, whose younger brother Ranjan and cousins were killed in the massacre on March 18, 1999, said if the court acquitted all the accused, who killed his family and others in the village. “The extremists took them to Thakurbari, tied their legs and hands. The miscreants first cut the throat of the victims and thereafter they cut the stomach of those who were found alive,” he said recalling the gory incident.

The verdict has also shocked Sharda Devi, 62, who lost his 21-year-old son Rakesh in the incident. “It is being said that the accused persons could not be identified. I want to ask how could an old lady, who was trying to save her life, identify the accused 20 years later?” she asked.

Mohan Sharma, 45, was picked by the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) like other men of the locality and lined up near Thakurbari under the Karpi police station area. “Two people were killed before me. I was hit by a sharp-edged weapon. I fell and pretended to be dead. I wrapped under the cover of dead bodies, from where I escaped when gunmen fled away,” he recalled.

Social activist Bablu Sharma told HT the state government provided compensation and government job to the next kin of the deceased. “Many of the family have shifted to other places and have built houses. There is no hatred in the village now. Most of the families are now residing in Khatangi, Manjhiyawan and Odibigha villages,” he said.

Former mukhiya of Karpi village, Kamlesh Sharma informed that eight of the victims is a close relative of the then High Court’s registrar Padmnarayan Singh, who died due to heart attack after he saw bodies. His son Ramakant Singh is the senior lawyer of Patna High Court, but he could not take action.