Naugachia (Bhagalpur): Santosh and Akhilesh, two Mahadalit youths whose daily wage labourer parents and 12-year-old brother were killed on November 25 and whose sister who was injured in the attack is struggling for life at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), are in dire straits.
Kanik Ram, his wife and youngest son were murdered at Jandhapur Maha Dalit Tola under the jurisdiction of Bihpur police station in Naugachhia in Bhagalpur, around 240km east of Patna.
One of Kanik's teenaged daughters, Bindi Kumari, survived the attack but she is unable to speak.
Kanik had seven children.
Kanik was into fishing, while Santosh worked as daily wage earner in Bengal's Siliguri and Akhilesh worked in Naugachhia. After the murders, they returned to the village. "We have not yet got any compensation from the government," said Santosh.
"We could have returned to our workplaces but we are staying here to take care of the house and the sisters. We also apprehend threat to our lives," said Akhilesh. They said dearth of money had prevented them from visiting Bindi.
They said people from the block office came to them and handed them two cheques of Rs 20,000 each. "Since we didn't have any bank account, we could not deposit the cheques. But with the help of a co-villager, we applied for opening new bank accounts around 10 days ago," said Akhilesh.
"Madhepura MP Pappu Yadav came soon after the incident and gave us Rs 22,000 so that we could conduct the last rites of our parents and brother somehow," said Santosh.
According to the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe Atrocity Act, 1995, in case of killing of any SC/ST, his/ her next of kin could get government compensation of Rs 8.3 lakh. Half of the compensation is given on the basis of the FIR and autopsy report.
District welfare officer Sunil Sharma said the compensation was held up because of paperwork, and promised to speed up the process.
The remaining 50 per cent amount in such cases is paid soon after the chargesheet is filed in the case in the court concerned. Asked about the reason of delay, Sharma said he returned from his leave recently but had sped up the process for completing the formalities so that the compensation could be given quickly.
"We already instructed the block office to send some related documents like the caste certificate of the deceased, documents verifying the relationship of the deceased's spouse along with other documents and after receiving the documents, the process of compensation will be sped up," Sharma told.
Asked about the compensation of Bindi (she is also entitled to compensation for her injury), Sharma said the proposal of the compensation for Bindi could be prepared only after obtaining medical reports from PMCH.
Family members of one Karu Singh, a partner of Kanik Ram, accused the SIT of implicating him in the murder and inflicting third-degree torture on Karu Singh. Karu Singh admitted to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in a critical state. Earlier, the SIT had nabbed another partner of the deceased, Mohon Singh, but his family members also started fighting against police for implicating him in the case.
"DIG Vikash Vaibhav earlier transferred all the staff of Bihpur police station after the incident but passage of almost a month, Naugachia police are still clueless. Police torture innocent people," said Lallan Roy, a Naugachia-based social activist.
