Dates of operation 1994–present Status Active | Active region(s) Bihar, India | |
The Ranvir Sena is a militant group functioning as an upper caste landlord militia, mainly based in the state of Bihar in eastern India. The group was formed by upper-caste Bhumihar landlords with support from Rajput landlords in 1994, with the aim of wiping out the Dalit farm labourers who had organised under the banner of Communist Party of India, Marxist-Lenninist (CPIML). The Ranvir Sena has been connected to a number of massacres including the massacre at Laxmanpur Bathe. It has, on several occasions, been accused of human rights abuses. The group has frequently publicly claimed responsibility for its crimes with impunity. The Bihar State government banned the Ranvir Sena in July 1995 and since then the Ranvir Sena has been proscribed.
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History
The name Ranvir comes from Ranvir Baba, an iconic local hero of the Bhumihar caste and a supposed mythical figure, and Sena is a Hindi word (origin: Sanskrit sena, meaning 'army'). As the legend goes, during the late 19th century, Ranvir Choudhury, a retired military man and a resident of Belaur village in Bhojpur district, protected the rights of the Bhumihar, a land-owing upper caste of the State, against the domination of the Rajputs. It is said that, due to the activities of Ranvir Baba, the Bhumihars asserted their power in Bhojpur district and established regional supremacy of the Bhumihars. In September 1994, Bhumihars of Belaur village in Bojpur district founded the Ranvir Sena.
Rangbahadur Singh Rajput was the first president of Ranveer Sena. He came from Ichari village, Jagdishpur, Bihar.
The Ranvir Sena originated in Bhojpur in 1994 with the avowed aim of wiping out Dalit liberation organizations, particularly the Naxalite groups and the Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) Liberation in central Bihar. The Indian government considers the group a right-wing extremist group, which serve the needs of wealthy landowners. It was founded in September 1994 in Belaur village of Udwantnagar block, Bhojpur district following the merger of private caste armies like Savarna Liberation Army and the Sunlight Sena. The forerunners to the Ranvir Sena in Bhojpur district were the Brahmarshi Sena and Kuer Sena, Kisan Morcha and Ganga Sena. These groups were smaller in size and operated with a limited area.
Brahmeshwar Singh of Khopira founded Ranvir Sena.
Brahmeshwar Singh was killed by unidentified gunmen on 1 June 2012 at Bhojpur (Bihar) while he was on his morning walk. Singh was facing life imprisonment in various massacres but was acquitted and released from jail in April 2012.
A day-long curfew was clamped on the district headquarters town in Bhojpur district as tension escalated following the gunning down of Brahmeshwar Singh. Prohibitory orders under section 144 CrPC were also enforced in the district.
Police and politician involvement
Some politicians are members of Ranvir Sena and some policemen have helped them on their raids. For example, in a Ranvir Sena raid in Ekwari, a village in Bihar, in April 1997, policemen opened the doors of Dalit villagers so the Ranvir Sena could go inside instead of protecting the villagers as they were supposed to. Chandradev Verma, former member of Janata Dal Member of Parliament for Arrah put legalising the Ranvir Sena as one of his campaign points in the 1998 Lok Sabha elections.
In 2015, in a media sting operation, evidence came to light that BJP leaders, including Murli Manohar Joshi and C. P. Thakur and the former PM Chandra Shekhar were complicit in the Bihar Dalit massacres committed by the Ranvir Sena while the governments of Nitish Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi declined to order investigations into the massacres despite knowledge of them.
Mass killings
They killed 10 workers in Haibatpur on the 23 March 1997. They wrote the name of the organisation in blood on the village well before they left. Most of the people Ranvir Sena killed that night belonged to families allegedly supporting Party Unity, a communist group.
On 11 July 1996, 21 Dalits were slaughtered by the Ranvir Sena in Bathani Tola, Bhojpur in Bihar. Among the dead were 11 women, six children and three infants. Ranvir Sena mob killed women and children in particular as per the design so as to deter any future resistance which they foresaw.
On 1 December 1997, they killed 61 Dalits, which includes – 16 children, 27 women and 18 men with guns. The same night,disfigured and shot to death 5 teenage girls.
Ranvir Sena said about the killings:
"We kill children because they will grow up to become Naxalites. We kill women because they will give birth to Naxalites."
After, they killed 8 low caste people who had ferried them across the river after the attack.
On 25 January 1999, there was a massacre of 22 dalit men, women and children by Ranvir Sena in the village of Shankarbigha, Jehanabad due to their alleged Naxalite allegiance. There was another massacre two weeks later in the neighboring village of Narayanpur, where Ranvir Sena killed twelve lower-caste people.
In April 2012, members of the Ranvir Sena were acquitted of Bathani Tola massacre in Bihar.
Organisation
The Ranvir Sena is highly organized, has extensive influence among landowners in its areas of operation, and is supposedly well-endowed with financial resources. Ranvir Sena cadres are militarily better-organised and are better-paid than any of the private armies of the past. The cadres operate mostly underground while their leaders are believed to be living in, on whose head the authorities had placed a reward of half a million Indian rupees, was the Supreme Commander of the Ranvir Sena until he was arrested in Patna on August 29, 2002 to face a large number of criminal cases, which included those related to massacres.
Initial reports said that Shamsher Bahadur Singh was, on 7 September 2002, appointed new chief of the Ranvir Sena. However, according to a report of 25 December 2002, the chief of the Ranvir Sena was Bhuar Thakur until he was arrested with his two associates on December 24, 2002 near Karnol bridge on the Patna-Sasaram road in Charpokhri, Bhojpur.
On 8 July 2011, Brahmeshwar Singh was released on bail after serving 9 years in jail for 17 cases, including those related to Dalit carnages in Bihar, after he was arrested from Patna in 2002. He was earlier granted bail in 16 other cases.
Ranvir Kisan Maha Sangh is the political wing that tried to take part in the 2004 elections. The Ranvir Mahila Sangh, a women's wing, has also been created. Its members too have been trained in arms use.
On 5 May 2012, the founder of Ranvir Sena Brahmeshwar Mukhiya, floated a non-political outfit Akhil Bharatiya Rashtravadi Kisan Sangathan.
On 1 June 2012, Ranvir Sena Chief Brahmeshwar Singh was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Bihar’s Ara Town.