Barbigha (Sheikhpura), Oct. 20: Fakira Choudhary of Hazaratpur Mararo village in Sheikhpura district is a ?refugee? on his own land. Assaulted thrice over the past 12 months, Choudhary and the 21 members of his family spend sleepless nights. The man responsible for their plight is one Prakash Mahto, who has been eyeing the Choudhary family?s one-acre land for quite some time.

Prakash is just one of the newly emboldened castemen who owes allegiance to the Ashok Mahto gang, which, along with the rival Akhilesh Singh group, have unleashed a reign of terror in Sheikhpura.

?A war of terror is going on here. The poor are easily terrorised. A few Mahto men pounce on the Dalits, intimidate them and grab their land just to assert their power and show their superiority and keep the Dalits subjugated ? all in the name of the Mahto master,? says Kumar Amod of the Bihar Dalit Vikas Samity.

Amod is upset because the police are unwilling to register Choudhary?s case under the SC/ST Act. In the absence of any ?Harijan thana? in Sheikpura district, Choudhary had to go to Munger to file the case, but without any success.

?Mahto claims that Choudhary?s land is ?gair majurva? (government land), though the latter still owns the ?hukumnama? (title deed) of the land from pre-Independence time,? Amod argues. ?The poor are forced to live in the periphery, but are evicted even from there,? he adds.

Choudhary?s case is not an isolated one. About 50 Musahar families of Vishnupur in Barbigha block have been living near an abandoned ahar (canal) land and own about four acres of arid land for many years.

?They too face threats these days because some local Mahto men can?t digest the fact that the Musahars possess land, which is unprecedented in our society,? Sahdeo Kumar Chanda of the National Council of Dalit Human Rights said.

Wanted by police in a number of cases, both the ganglords are absconding. While the police arrested both Mahto and Singh several times, the two somehow managed to escape on a number of occasions.

If the murder of the block officer of Ariyari and the Benar carnage in June ? in which 11 brick kiln workers were killed ? were allegedly the handiwork of the Mahto gang, Bhoomihar castemen of the Singh gang are said to be using force to make labourers work for a pittance.

Munger division commissioner Sanjeev Kumar Sinha said they do not have enough resources and security personnel to take swift action.

?The crime situation is more or less the same everywhere in Bihar. We are aware of the situation in Sheikhpura and hope to do something on a priority basis, which is confidential,? he added.