A JD(U) leader and husband of village mukhiya in Bihar, whose brutal assault on a youth in full public view mocked at chief minister Nitish Kumar’s robust claims of establishing the rule of law in the state, was on Tuesday arrested and sent to jail following Mr Kumar’s orders.
Shambhu Saran Rai, secretary of the Vaishali district unit of Bihar’s ruling JD(U), was secretly caught in a mobile phone video camera by one of hundreds of onlookers when he mercilessly beat up Rajesh Mahto, about 22, by hanging him upside down from a horizontally placed bamboo supported on the shoulders of two other men in Mansurpur Haleya village on Sunday.
The assault continued for an hour and half.
After the grainy video was made into a CD and handed to the Vaishali police before it was shown on local TV news channels in Bihar on Monday, Rai absconded. Villagers said Rai, the husband of Mansurpur Haleya panchayat mukhiya Sangita Devi, was meting out exemplary punishment to Mahto, accused of trying to molest a local girl, on behalf of the panchayat and its mukhiya. Mahto was admitted at the Patna Medical College and Hospital with grave injuries.
The JD(U) state leadership first suspended Rai from the party and the chief minister ordered for his arrest. Rai surrendered before the police on Tuesday.