A bustling fair in progress in a Bihar village currently is no ordinary, familiar event in the rural calendar.
Attended by large crowds from dozens of villages, the fair is organised by armed Maoists to commemorate their “martyrs” and spread the revolutionary ideology. Yet the Bihar police are blissfully unaware of such activities.
Apart from organising the fair at Gidda village in Sitamarhi district’s Runnisaidpur, the Maoists have raised a monument in honour of slain comrades like Ravijee and 14 others. The 12-foot cement monument bearing the names of the slain rebels was unveiled by local and invited Maoist leaders, some of them carrying guns, in a public ceremony on Wednesday.
According to sources, most villagers attending the fair to buy various items of domestic and agricultural use are aware of the fact that the Maoists have organised the event. Maoist literature on the “futility of Indian democracy” and “the need for armed revolution” is also being reportedly distributed at this fair in a clandestine manner.
As many as 33 of Bihar’s 39 districts are Maoist-affected and the police claims it is closely monitoring the rebels’ activities. Yet three welcome arches erected to advertise the fair in Sitamarhi days before the fair began failed to alert the police about its organisers. Queries on this yielded no forthright answers from police officials. But sources said the Maoists had won the sympathies and support of thousands of local villagers in recent months.
In an alarming show of instant justice on Monday, the Maoists held a kangaroo court in Aurangabad district and brutally thrashed two dalit men accused of trying to extort money from NTPC officials in the name of the rebels.