File picture of Ranvir Sena chief Barmeshwar Singh being produced in a Bihar court in 1999

Patna, Aug. 25: The roar of the gun is threatening to reverberate through the Maoist-dominated badlands of Bihar.

Kaimur Shanti Sena (KSS), a private army of Yadavs in Rohtas-Kaimur region on the border with Jharkhand, has begun accumulating arms to fight back the Naxalite guerrillas.

The outfit is modelled after the affluent farmers’ militia group Ranvir Sena, which was raised by the Bhumihar landlords.

The Naxalites got a taste of the Shanti Sangh’s power on two consecutive days. On Monday, its members intercepted four Maoists and handed them over to police. The next day, they thwarted the rebels’ attempt to avenge the arrest of their comrades. On both days, the police allegedly remained mute spectators in Dhansa village.

The Sena has the backing of a former bandit king of the region, Ram Vachan Yadav. With 40 and odd members, it has its influence on Dhansa, Kuba, Dugdha, Londa, Lohra and Paharpur villages, dominated by Yadavs.

The Maoists stormed into Dhansa village, under Rohtas police station, yesterday and brutally assaulted three villagers for revolting against them. But the rest of the residents of the village, about 250km southeast of Patna, fought bravely and forced the Maoists to retreat.

“We kept the Maoists at bay for nearly 26 hours and foiled their attempt to abduct some villagers and loot their firearms as they had done barely a month ago. The villagers came out with their licensed weapons and gave a befitting reply to the trained commandos of the banned outfit,” said a member of the Sena.

The villagers said they had informed the Rohtas police station about the attack, but no help came from them.

“The Rohtas police station is about 4km from the village. There is a CRPF camp at Banjari, about 6km from Dhansa. But the security personnel prefer to remain inside the camp,” the Sena member said.

The villagers of Dhansa had apprehended the attack after the arrest of the four Maoists, including zonal secretary Satyendra Singh alias Shekher, from Rehal forest area on Monday. Even senior police officers were tipped off about the possible Maoists attack on the village surrounded by hilly terrain.

Sources said the Sena men had attacked the divisional forest rest house near Rehal following a tip-off that the Maoists, led by its zonal secretary, had assembled there. After an eight-hour exchange of fire, the Maoists had to surrender with two rifles of .315 bore, a country-made gun, a revolver and over 200 rounds of ammunition.

The rebels made four abortive attempts to free their squad members. But the Sena men thwarted their bid and handed over the four Maoists to Audhaura police. A 75-year-old man, Ahmad Hajam, was killed in the exchange of fire. The four arrested Maoists — Satyendra, Kishan Oraon, Mohan and Shiv — were produced before Sasaram court today. They were remanded to judicial custody for 14 days.

The police attributed the mass protest against the rebels to ill treatment meted out to innocent villagers. Rohtas superintendent of police Vikas Vaibhav said: “The residents of over a dozen villages on the border of Rohtas and Kaimur districts have taken up arms against the Maoists. The rebels are being driven out from the villages, once considered to be their stronghold.”

Vaibhav said the people have shown faith in the law-enforcing agency after the district police launched community policing in Naxalite-affected areas. “Harassment by the Maoists in the name of being informers of the police has caused strong resentment among the masses against the banned organisation,” Vaibhav told The Telegraph.

The way the villagers fought with the Maoists in the past two days reminded people of a decade-old fight between the Maoists and the Ranvir Sena. The outfit had originated from Bhojpur’s Sahar area in 1990s and strengthened its base in many districts of central Bihar, including Bhojpur, Jehanabad, Aurangabad, Arwal, Gaya, Rohtas and parts of Patna.