Ten people were on Tuesday sentenced to death and four others awarded life imprisonment by a lower court in Bihar for the Amausi massacre in 2009 in which 16 people from the politically forward Kurmi and Koeri castes were shot dead in cold blood.
The massacre on October 1, 2009, which had sparked strong political uproar, was largely viewed as one of the worst fallouts of Bihar’s volatile vortex of caste politics, inequalities in land ownership and trend of Maoist vengeance. A long-running land dispute between the OBC Kurmis and the underprivileged dalit Musahars in Amausi village in Khagaria district, about 180 km from Patna, had resulted in the midnight massacre with alleged help from the Maoists.
Additional district and sessions judge C.B. Dwivedi announced the punishment for the 14 accused, all suspected Maoists, who he had convicted while acquitting 14 others for insufficient evidence on February 8. Six of the 34 people named accused are absconding. The convicts, all from dalit communities, include Bodhan Sada, a self-styled area commander of the outlawed CPI(Maoist).
The Nitish Kumar-led government’s caste-based welfare politics was blamed by the Opposition parties and political analysts for playing a role in the massacre.
Mr Kumar, who belongs to the Kurmi caste, created the controversial Mahadalit category from among Bihar’s 22 SC groups for special benefits from welfare schemes in 2007.