Saved from the gallows, four persons convicted in the infamous Bara massacre case in Bihar, will now spend their time behind bars. Human rights bodies have termed the relief to the convicts as a ‘half-victory’
Nanhe lal Mochi will not go to gallows, neither will Krishna Mochi, Veer Kuer Paswan and Dharmendra Singh alias Dharu Singh. Uncertain about their life till recently, they will not be hanged but die a natural death behind the bars or outside. Their death sentences have been commuted by life through a presidential decree.
They are lodged in Bhagalpur Central Jail for 16 to 23 years. They are in the age group of 60 and 80 and had been awarded capital punishment first by the designated TADA court and finally the Supreme Court. Their case, known as Bara massacre trial, stretched for over two decades. Of them, three are Dalits and one belongs to the upper caste.
President Pranab Mukherjee accepted their mercy please and commuted their death sentence into life imprisonment. The presidential decree is against the recommendation of the Union Home Ministry which had suggested rejection of their mercy petitions.
The Bara massacre of February 12, 1992, in Gaya district, was carried out by the cadres of outlawed Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) in a retaliatory move. It left 35 males of the upper caste Bhumihar dead.
The victims were supposed to be cadres of Ranvir Sena, a private army of Bhumihar landed gentries and farmers while the accused were sharecroppers or daily wage farm hands.
The apex court had put its seal on their capital punishment way back in April 2002. Their mercy petitions forwarded from Bhagalpur jail in March 2003 and it gathered dust for over 13 years in the Home department of Bihar and Union Ministry of Home Affairs. It finally reached to the President in August last, with the recommendation that it should be rejected.
Nanhe lal Mochi is 80, Paswan is 72, Krishna Mochi is 64 and Dharmendra Singh, the only upper caste convict in the case, is in his early 60s. Spending 16 to 23 years in death cells of Bhagalpur prison they had been praying to be hanged instead of dying inch by inch, day by day.
The Pioneer had front-paged a report on November 28, 2016, captioned, ‘They’ve one foot in grave, still ‘death’ keeps them waiting’, which was highly acclaimed by the human rights bodies and others who believed in the rule of law and also compassion.
The Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), which fought for the rights of these condemned prisoners, is still not sure if the four would get out of the prison or remain there till their last. As per a Supreme Court verdict, life imprisonment means a prisoner has to live behind bars till his or her death.
Terming the presidential mercy as half-victory, PUDR member Gautam Naulakha urged the Nitish Kumar Government to intervene in this case and pressure the Centre for the unconditional release of the four elderly men and also do something for their rehabilitation.
Nagrik Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti, Bihar, another human rights body which aligned with the PUDR to fight for the convicts of Bara and other massacres in Bihar, was hopeful that those victims of injustice would get justice and real culprits sentenced. Samiti member Sanjay Shyam said, “We hope that the four people will be released from jail since they have already spent 16 to 23 years in confinement.”
The Supreme Court, which had confirmed the death sentence to four awarded by the TADA court while acquitting one convict, Bihari Manjhi, had observed during the final hearing on April 15, 2002, “It appears that instead of collecting any material or evidence for connecting these accused with the crime, the investigating agency has adopted unjustified method.”
It is another matter that the same compromised investigation formed the basis of the conviction of other four whose death sentences were confirmed by the same bench by a majority decision of two versus one.
A PUDR report captioned, ‘Harvesting Death’, pointed out that even though Parliament had allowed TADA to lapse in 1995 on account of the public outcry against the rampant misuse, with over one lakh people in jails across the country, the Bara trial continued to suffer all the discriminatory provisions of that law.
The report further pointed out that in the numerous criminal cases where the landlords’ armies massacred landless dalits, the final outcomes have invariably been acquittals. The courts acquitted the accused persons convicted by lower courts in the massacres at villages Bathni Tola, lakshmanpur Bathe, Nagri and Miyanpur where a total of 122 Dalits were butchered by workers of Ranvir Sena.
(The writer is Patna-based Special Correspondent of The Pioneer)