Gunmen in India Kill 34 in Caste-Related Violence

Black-garbed gunmen stormed a village while its residents slept early Saturday, executing 34 women, children and elderly men in the latest caste-related violence in one of India’s most impoverished states.

The attackers, identified as members of an upper-caste militia backed by rich landlords, fought a gun battle with several armed villagers for 2 1/2 hours until the residents ran out of ammunition, said M.V. Rao, police superintendent of the Aurangabad area in Bihar state, where the massacre occurred.

Then the attackers stormed several homes and ordered the women, children and elders to stand in a line. They were shot and killed.

A young girl, seven boys, 19 women and seven elderly men--all members of lower castes--were killed in the attack in Miapur village. Fifteen people were wounded.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee condemned the massacre and asked the state government to take steps to prevent such violence, the Press Trust of India said.

“We were sleeping, and suddenly the firing started,” said Anupama Devi, 68, whose two daughters-in-law were killed in the attack. “I ran out and screamed, ‘Why are you killing us?’ ”

Devi quoted one of the attackers as shouting: “Shut up. We have come to take revenge!”

The Ranvir Sena, a private army of upper castes, claimed responsibility for the attack and warned the government of more massacres, police said.

Caste-related violence often flares in Bihar state between the Ranvir Sena and Maoist guerrillas belonging to the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Center, who say they represent the underclass. Revenge attacks are often carried out against villagers, and scores die each year.

But analysts said hatred between different castes in the centuries-old social hierarchy of Hindus is not the only reason for the seemingly unending cycle of killings.

“It is not a problem of caste or policing. It is a problem of infighting among the political bosses,” said Shivendra Narayan, senior anthropologist at the independent A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies in Patna, the capital of Bihar.

Rival political parties in the state accuse each other of funding rival groups. Hundreds of unemployed youth in Bihar are sucked into the rivalry and join the rival groups according to their caste affiliations, analysts say.