A view of Shibu Soren’s ancestral home in Nemra and his two-storeyed house constructed in 1992 in the backdrop. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Nemra (Hazaribagh), Dec. 4: His father killed a bhringraj (Dicrurus paradiseus) — a rare bird — which the boy kept as pet. After performing the last rites of the bird like that of a human being, he turned vegetarian. When almost 50 years after the same boy was convicted of murdering his secretary, known to be quite close to his heart, Rajaram Soren was not ready to accept the Delhi court’s order.

For Rajaram, Shibu Soren’s elder brother, Guruji cannot even kill a bird, let alone a human being, and that too brutally as per CBI probe reports.

“Shibu is victim of a larger political conspiracy,” said Rajaram at his home in Gola, around 70 km from Ranchi, where he runs an NGO.

Although villagers in Nemra — where the former coal minister had spent his childhood — tried to look at the November 28 order of the court as an isolated case, which does not at all affect the poverty-stricken tribal hamlet, some of them did not hide their ire at the parliamentarian.

“We are aware that Guruji chacha is in jail. But what can we do? We all are too busy and preoccupied with day-to-day work,” said 18-year-old Rekha, Soren’s niece, adding that two of her uncles told the villagers about the fate of Soren, who was shifted to Tihar Jail yesterday.

Deprived of basic amenities like drinking water, proper road and electricity, Guruji’s native village — around 20 km from Gola — seems to have forgotten the hero who once waged war against the landlords and sahookars of the region after his father Sobhran Soren had been killed in 1957. Soren’s two-storied building is the only pucca house in the village dotted with distressed families. Even a Class VI dropout will say what the MP could have done to the place since he had made his entry to the Lok Sabha 26 years ago. “I know Guruji. He visits the village once in a year on November 27 to mark the martyr day of his father, but he did not come this year. Last time, he was seen in the village was during the marriage of his youngest son, Hemant,” said Dinesh Kumar Kisku, on his way to the village from Barlanga haat.

The local haat, 5 km from Nemra, is the only place where villagers can sell vegetables to buy kerosene — the only available fuel, which is the source of cooking and also lighting hurricanes, as the village hardly gets uninterrupted electricity for an hour a day.

Kisku, who left studies when he was only 11 to eke out a living, added that no one wants to visit his village as the road is in a bad shape. The unemployed youths have to go to Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and even Calcutta.

Except Shankar Soren’s family — Rekha and her mother — none of Guruji’s four brothers — Rajaram, Lalu, Ramu and Shankar — lives in the village, where the residents have to take the each kind of responsibility for development — be it changing the course of Badka river for irrigation and drinking water purposes, or even constructing a village road.

All that they can do now is to keep fingers crossed for a “bright” future.