Bharat Tiwari's Encounter in Bihar Shows That the Hindutva Model of Instant Justice Can Also Consume One of Its Own

Policemen allegedly shot Bharat Bhushan Tiwari (28) – an activist agitating against flooding, displacement and corruption in lower administrative system – at his Bilauti village in central Bihar’s Bhojpur district, apparently after he threw his pistol and surrendered before the security forces on June 17.

The police said that they fired on Tiwari in “self-defence” and Tiwari died when he was being transported to the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH). There were contradictions between the versions the local people and the police, fuelling outrage across Bihar and unending streams of debates in the media and local channels. Chief minister, Samrat Choudhary announced a high-level judicial probe into the incident on June 20, but the controversy refuses to die down.

Politicians from different parties including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former minister Ashwini Choubey, Purnia MP Pappu Yadav and local strongman and former MLA Rajan Tiwary called on the deceased’s family members and villagers, describing the incident as a “cold-blooded” murder of a spirited activist who was raising his voice for the cause of the people and against systemic corruption at the local level.

It’s not that Tiwari’s death was the first case of what the politicians and the people are describing as a “fake encounter”. Bihar has witnessed several cases of “fake encounters” and “custodial deaths” in the past. The police had allegedly killed a businessman, Rajesh Dhawan and his two employees on December 5, 1993, at Barachatti in Gaya in which the Supreme Court had converted the death sentence of six policemen to life sentence. As late as on December 31, 2025, the special task force (STF) men allegedly gunned down a Naxalite leader Dayanand Malakar at Nonpur village in north Bihar’s Begusarai district which the opposition members in the state Legislative Council described as a case of “fake encounter”.

Model of lawlessness

But few episodes of “fake encounter” had drawn as much outrage as that of Bharat Tiwari. Why so? It’s perhaps, because, Tiwari, an upper caste Brahmin, protested against flooding, displacement, and for the rehabilitation of the poor at his village. While he described himself as a krantikari (revolutionary) on the line of the martyr Sardar Bhagat Singh, but he idolised the “model” of neighbouring Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Adityanath.

Youtuber Ravish Kumar in his video report based on thorough study of Tiwari’s Facebook accounts has stated that Tiwari accepted Adityanath as his “role model” and had even carried out a yatra to the Bageshwar Dham ashram of  self-styled godman Dhirendra Shastri, who is supportive to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS’s)-BJP’s agenda of Hindutva.

It’s evident from ubiquitous video clips that Adityanath openly advocates the killing of the “mafiosi and criminals” in the “encounters” with the police. “Mafiaon ka encounter kara dengein (I will get the mafiosi killed in encounter with the police)” is a pet threat to the alleged lawbreakers. His administration in Uttar Pradesh has become “famous” or “infamous” for bulldozer justice, an anti-thesis of the judicial process stipulated in the Constitution.

Political figures Atiq Ahmed, Ashraf Ahmad, Atiq’s son Asad Ahmed and Mukhtar Ansari were among several Muslims either killed in “encounter” with police or in “judicial custody” , or murdered before the police in the last five years for which Adityanath in particular and the BJP leadership in general have claimed credit for “annihilating mafiosi” in U.P.

The selective killings, detentions and arrests of Muslims in BJP-ruled states have increasingly become synonymous with what the Hindutva apparatus describes as its campaign against the “stranglehold of mafia and criminals”. Hindutva activists brandishing swords and dancing around mosques, the bulldozing of mosques and madrasas, and, on the other hand, airplanes showering flower petals on kanwariyas and policemen massaging their limbs during the Kanwar Yatra in the month of Sawan (July–August) have become common sights in Uttar Pradesh.

Tiwari: A victim of Hindutva’s model of instant justice

Ravish Kumar, in his video report, has criticised the killing of Tiwari but has also posed a question: had the killing of a Muslim in a fake encounter generated similar outrage? The question is valid in the sense that the new Bihar chief minister, Samrat Choudhary, who recently replaced Nitish Kumar, is believed to favour the “model” adopted by Adityanath and other BJP chief ministers in dealing with alleged lawbreakers.

In fact, Tiwari seems to have become a victim of the "Hindutva model of justice and administration". The Bhojpur police have made some bizarre statements about the episode. “Bharat Tiwari was mentally unstable,” said a statement attributed to the Bhojpur Superintendent of Police. Even if one were to accept the Bhojpur police’s version, should a “mentally unstable” person have been killed?

Some senior police officers, as well as politicians sympathetic to Tiwari’s family, are also asking: Why did the police fire at him? Was he a criminal? Did he or his family have criminal antecedents? Was he anti-national? Was he a terrorist? Was he a thief? And so on.

Such questions suggest that even those policemen and politicians who are sympathetic to the deceased and his family are not necessarily opposed to extra-judicial killings per se. They appear to believe that the police are justified in killing an alleged criminal or an “anti-national element”, disregarding the law of the land, which in no way authorises the police to open fire on an unarmed person or kill him.

While debates continue over the death of  Tiwari, an old video of Nitish Kumar has gone viral in which the former chief minister is heard questioning the very rationale of extra-judicial killings. “Can the police kill someone in judicial custody? Do the police have the power to kill someone in jail or otherwise? It is the court that decides the punishment, not the police,” Kumar is heard saying in the video.

Be it Kumar, Lalu Prasad Yadav, Karpoori Thakur or their Congress predecessors, they were, at least in principle, opposed to extra-judicial killings as a matter of constitutional governance and criminal law. BJP leaders differ in their conception of law and order; they appear more willing to endorse what supporters describe as “extra-judicial activism” and to praise Adityanath’s model of “bulldozer justice”.

It remains to be seen how the judicial probe ordered by the chief minister proceeds in Tiwari’s case. But the malaise, many would argue, lies in the very approach of the Hindutva leadership towards the law and the Constitution.

Nalin Verma is a journalist, author and folklorist.

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