Patna, Oct. 3: The alleged mastermind of Thursday night’s massacre of 16 backward class farmers by Maoists in north Bihar was arrested today along with six accomplices, police said.

“We have arrested .P. Mahto alias Upendra Mahto who masterminded the assault and six of his accomplices. The police have got major clues on the basis of his interrogation,” additional director-general of police (headquarters) Neelmani said in Patna.

The arrested seven are among the 37 accused in the FIR lodged in connection with the carnage at Amausi-Bahiar village in Khagaria district, 225km from Patna.

Mahto, said to be a “leader” of the Scheduled Caste Musahars locked in a land dispute with the Kurmi and Koiri farmers shot dead, colluded with Goran Sardar, former area commander of the CPI (Maoists), in the bloodbath, police officials said after interrogating the arrested seven.

Sardar, besides being a former area commander of the Maoists, is believed to have been running an armed gang of his own and carries a bounty of Rs 50,000 on his head.

The landless Musahars and the Kurmi-Koiris have been fighting for close to 25 years over 150 acres of fertile sandy tract at Amousi-Bahiar, on the bank of the Kareh river. The officials suspect that a section of the Musahars had joined the Maoists who have been trying to spread their tentacles in the region.

“The Musahars at war with the Kurmis and Koiris cultivating the sandy land may have used the services of Sardar, Mahto and other Maoist cadres to eliminate their enemies and capture land,” a senior police official on the case said.

Intelligence sources believe the riverine villages around Alauli, a small town near the massacre site, have become a “nerve centre” of the Maoists in the region.

The area is infested with gangs, many of whose members are said to have joined the rebels’ ranks.

Police sources said a team of Union home ministry officials had reached Amausi- Bahiar. They are finding out the “extent” of the guerrillas’ role in the blood-curdling incident and their “spread” in the region, so far thought to be outside the rebels’ area of influence, which was restricted to south and central Bihar.

The area looks like a police camp, full of commandos of the state police and the CRPF. Raids are being conducted on the suspected hideouts of the killers. A hunt is also on for a panchayat clerk and an additional district magistrate-rank official suspected to have sided with the Musahars and incited them to capture the land.

Khagaria shut down today in response to a bandh call by the RJD and ally Lok Janshakti Party. The two parties have said the massacre was an example of the “worsening law and order” situation under the Nitish Kumar government.