12 Villagers Killed By Militia in Indian Caste Attack

Backed by upper-caste landlords seeking revenge, a private militia stormed into a village in eastern India, killing 12 people, police said Thursday.

Members of the Ranbir Sena militia on Wednesday entered the village of Sindani, 530 miles southeast of New Delhi, and opened fire, said T.P. Sinha, a local police official.

The massacre was probably in retaliation for the killing of 35 upper-caste Hindus by Communist rebels last month in Bihar, India’s most lawless state, where a caste war has erupted, police said.

“Had the police not arrived in time, there would have been more dead bodies here,” said villager Sumant Manjhi, whose father and two brothers were killed.

Witnesses said the dead were mainly women and old men. Many youths fled the scene on hearing gunshots.

The militia has targeted Dalits, which means “oppressed ones,” the lowest group in the hierarchy of Hinduism. Most Dalits are poor, uneducated farm laborers.

Wednesday’s attack was the sixth major caste-related massacre in Bihar State in the past six months. Last month, Communist guerrillas struck in the neighboring Jehanabad district, where nearly 200 people belonging to lower classes and 54 upper-caste Hindus have been killed since 1981.

The Communist groups have been trying to organize laborers in Bihar to improve their condition and secure them land, a challenge to the social order.

India’s caste system is an age-old Hindu social structure that can determine anything from where a lower-caste person works to where he lives, worships or drinks water. Though India’s Constitution outlaws discrimination by caste, the system remains prevalent in rural areas.