Khairlanji, RSS HQ attack rocked Vidarbha in 2006

Nagpur, Jan 1: The killing of four members of a Dalit family by villagers in Khairlanji in Bhandara district, the widespread violence in its wake, the foiled attack by terrorists on the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in Nagpur, and the large number of suicides by farmers rocked Vidarbha region of Maharashtra in the year 2006.

A mob of villagers lynched Surekha Bhotmange (45), daughter Priyanka (18) and sons Roshan (23) and Sudhir (21) to death in Khairlanji late on the night of September 29 over a land dispute.

The head of the family, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange, escaped the mob fury.

The shameful incident shook Vidarbha, indeed, the entire country, and was described as a blot on humanity itself.

Tragically, the killings took place barely days before the country celebrated the 50th anniversary of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism. Dr Ambedkar converted to Buddhism in Nagpur on October 14, 1956, which happened to be a Dussera. The historic event is, therefore, traditionally commemorated annually on Dussera, which happened to be on October 2 this year.

Dalit organisations staged protests against the Khairlanji killings at several places in Vidarbha. Violence broke out in Nagpur on November 6, with a mob ransacking a police chowky, torching a police vehicle and several private vehicles. The violence spread to other places in the region also, including Kamptee town, about 15 kilometres from Nagpur, Bhandara, Yavatmal and Amravati.

Curfew had to be imposed for a while in Kamptee and Yavatmal after the violence. Police had to resort to firing in Amravati to control a mob that went on a rampage in and around the district collector's office there. Dinesh Wankhede was injured in the firing and succumbed to his wounds during treatment in Nagpur.

The Government of Maharashtra paid compensation to Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange and gave him a job in a hostel for students of backward class in Bhandara district. The police arrested a total of 45 persons in connection with the incident, all of whom are now in judicial custody. The state government later handed over the probe into the incident to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI filed a chargesheet against 11 persons in the court of the Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) in Tumsar in Bhandara district on December 27.

RSS HQ ATTACK: On June 1 this year, Nagpur Police gunned down three suspected terrorists in a white Ambassador car with an amber rooftop beacon as they tried to storm into the headquarters of the RSS here in the wee hours of the day.

The men were killed in a brief encounter with the police after the car, laden with arms and ammunition, smashed through a security barricade barely metres away from the headquarters building. The police have not yet officially released the names of the three men killed in the encounter, and believe they all had links with some Islamic fundamentalist organisation.

The police also seized a large cache of arms and ammunition from a car bearing registration plates of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and arrested three persons in the vehicle on December 28. The seizure included 1 carbine machinegun, 2 bolt action rifles, 3 bolt action rifles of .315 bore, 15 magazines of AK-47 rifles and 5 of carbine machineguns, besides 1,500 rounds of 9 mm bore, 580 rounds of 7.62 bore SLR, 600 of .31 carbine, 480 of .30 carbine, 950 of PMC, 500 of .315 bore rifle, and 200 of 5.56 rifle. The police believe the three occupants of the car have links with naxalite organisations.

A few days earlier, the police had arrested a woman and a man after the seizure of 62 gelatine sticks and 21 detonators from the woman's house.

FARMERS' SUICIDES: The spate of suicides by debt-ridden farmers in Vidarbha continued unabated during 2006. This was in spite of the announcement of relief packages for the six worst affected districts of the region by the state government in December 2005 and by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 1, 2006. Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), a voluntary organisation that works among farmers in the region and has compiled figures of the suicides, claimed there had been 1,040 suicides by farmers in Vidarbha in the year. These include 646 who ended their lives after the announcement of the relief package by the Prime Minister, VJAS said.

The last five months of 2006 had been the worst on this count, with over 100 suicides by farmers being recorded in each, it said.

According to the figures compiled by VJAS, the number of farmers' suicides was 111 in August 2006, 124 in September, 112 in October and 107 in November. The number has touched 102 in December, VJAS said in a press release here on December 30.

EX-MLA MURDERED: Other events that shook Vidarbha in 2006 included the murder of former Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Washim, Yadavrao Shikhare, in September, and the death of 12 members of a marriage party in the blast of a landmine suspected to have been planted by naxalites in Etapalli tehsil of Gadchiroli district in May.

The police have filed a chargesheet against four accused in connection with Shikhare's murder, among whom are his wife Shobha and elder of two sons Prashant.

UNI