Bloody clashes among kin rising

BJ Mirror Correspondent

Murder and bloody clashes among kin are escalating fast in the twin states of Bihar and Jharkhand. Reasons: Crumbling joint family system, vanishing family bonds, greed and insatiable craze to become Birla-Ambanis overnight, drug addiction and zero tolerance in the society.

Jharkhand has reported 249 cases of child atrocities. In the tribal state, over 33,000 girls are trafficked every year. Most are below 18 and either illiterate or semi-literate. They are usually forced to work in households, restaurants or factories if they are lucky. Otherwise they end up in brothels.

The findings of the latest National Family Health Survey-III, covering the period of 2006-2007 for Bihar says that 59 per cent of women in Bihar are beaten by husbands. As per the latest statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), crime against women in Bihar has increased by 65 per cent in the past three years. And the Jharkhand Human Rights report 2001-2010 has revealed 7,563 reported rapes and 3,398 dowry atrocities in ten years after constitution of the new state on November 15, 2000.

An example of zero tolerance has come from a Darbhanga village. A man threw acid on his wife as she reportedly delayed her departure with him from her sister’s house. Eight others, including his son are in hospital with acid burn injuries. The incident occurred in Baherhi village of the district.

The JD(U) MLA from Rupauli, Bima Bharati, has accused her husband of trying to kill their ten-year-old son by forcing him to drink country liquor laced with poison. Accused Avdhesh Mandal, who is the pramukh of Bhawanipur block, has refuted the charge levelled by his wife. Mandal is a dreaded don of the area. MS. Bharati has lodged an FIR against Mandal with the Khazanchihat police station. The marital discord between Bharti and Mandal has plummeted to this new low. “Bharati has also slapped a divorce case on me”, Mandal said. Bharati, who married Mandal, the kingpin of the outlawed Faizan group, in 1990, is a mother of two sons and a daughter. Mandal said: “How can a man even think of poisoning his son? It is a conspiracy hatched by my wife to make the divorce case she had filed against me strong”.

A report in a Ranchi daily said that bloody violence within the family has become common in Jharkhand. Cases have revealed the involvement of blood relations in murders, rapes and dacoities. In the first week of November, there were four cases: an 18-year-old son slitting the throat of his 45-year-old father, a married woman and her paramour killing her father and brother, a three-year-old girl getting raped and murdered by her uncle and a cousin killing his uncle in Jamshedpur over a land dispute. Apart from bloodbath, there was a dacoity case, too. Two brothers were arrested by the Ranchi police on the charge of committing dacoity in their own brother’s house with the help of two professionals.

While, an 18-year-old, Alok Gari, slit the throat of his 45-year-old father, Fransis Gari, over some petty differences of opinion, a married woman along with her paramour in Ranchi murdered her father and brother to get control over the property. The accused, Sacchi Shekhar, was in an illicit relationship with Awdesh Singh alias Pintoo, a guard at their place. A woman along with her son-in-law killed her husband in Tupudana locality. A middle-aged-man Bartu Sahu was murdered by his wife and son and a sister got her brother killed in Tupudana over some land disputes. A woman stabbed her father-in-law to death in Bokaro after he raped her thrice on a single day.