Patna (Bihar): The conviction, life sentence and subsequent assembly disqualification of Bihar’s CPI-ML (Liberation) leader Manoj Manzil is making headlines, as questions are being raised about the case against him.
Manzil, first time MLA and firebrand Dalit leader of CPI-ML (Liberation), was found guilty in a nine-year-old murder case and sentenced to life imprisonment on February 13. With his conviction, he was disqualified from the membership of the state legislative assembly.
Along with Manzil, 22 other people aged between 25 and 90 years, also assumed to be CPI-ML (Liberation) workers, have been found guilty in the murder case of Jay Prakash Singh and sentenced to life imprisonment.
A special Bhojpur district’s MP/MLA court wrote in its 23-page judgment, “Prosecution has failed to bring any peculiar fact that would place the acts of the convicts in the rarest of rare category to merit the sentence of death. So the court cannot award the convicts the benefit of Probation of Offenders Act and will award substantive sentences.”
All the 23 accused were awarded rigorous imprisonment for life and Rs 10,000 fine under section 302/149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), ten years rigorous imprisonment and Rs 10,000 fine under section 364/149 of IPC and three years’ imprisonment and Rs 5,000 fine under section 201/149 of IPC, according to the order.
As per the order, “All the sentences awarded are to run concurrently and the period of detention, if any, undergone by the convicts, during the investigation, inquiry of trial shall be set off as per the provision laid down under section 428 of the CrPC.”
The CPI-ML (Liberation) has termed the judgment a “judicial massacre” and alleged that Manzil and the others were the “victim of a conspiracy hatched by the BJP and feudal forces”.
“In Bhojpur, these forces have been continuously trying to stop the movement of Dalits and the poor by sending our leaders to jail or creating massacres,” Kunal, Bihar state secretary of CPI-ML (Liberation), said.
He added, “Many massacres of Dalits and the poor took place in the same Bhojpur district but culprits have not been punished till date even in one case. A grave injustice has been done to our leaders who became the voice of Dalits and the poor.”
He pointed out that all the persons sentenced belong to poor, Dalit and the OBC communities. “What could be a bigger judicial massacre than this?” Kunal asked.
The case of Jay Prakash’s murder
The murder of Jay Prakash was believed to be due to a fallout over the murder of Satish Yadav, a local CPI-ML (Liberation) leader, who was murdered on August 20, 2015.
On the same evening, Jay Prakash and his son Chandan Kumar Singh were returning to their village after buying vegetables from Badgaon market when the CPI-ML (Liberation) was holding a meeting in this market against the murder of Satish Yadav. Manzil was allegedly present in this gathering.
According to the FIR, when Jay Prakash and his son neared Nariyadih, Manzil and others started assaulting them with sticks, bricks and stones. Chandan fled from the site but Jay Prakash didn’t return to his home.
On August 27, 2015 Chandan was informed by the police that Jay Prakash’s body was found from a nearby canal. Chandan identified the body and the body was handed over to him after post-mortem.
The post-mortem report concluded that strangulation led to cardio-respiratory failure which caused death. A local court took cognisance of the case on March 15, 2019 and after three years, charges were framed and trial initiated.
The findings in the case included nine eyewitnesses, including the deceased person’s son, doctor who conducted post-mortem and an investigating officer, post-mortem report and chargesheet but no material evidence was produced. On the other hand, the defence could not produce oral, documentary and material evidence.
The murder of Satish Yadav
Satish Yadav entered politics at the age of 20. His father was a CPI-ML (Liberation) leader and had unsuccessfully fought assembly elections on the party’s tickets. Following his father’s path, Satish also joined the CPI-ML (Liberation) in 1995.
“Satish had taken up the fight against the Ranveer Sena and fought several historic battles as part of the party’s propaganda squad. His capabilities soon made him a popular leader within the party as well as with the people,” CPI-ML (Liberation) wrote about Satish in its obituary article.
“When the paddy crop was ready, he led a historic struggle for its purchase in Agiaon and forced the administration to purchase 30,000 quintals of paddy from sharecroppers and small farmers,” the party added in the obituary.
On August 20, 2015, Satish Yadav was returning to his home in Kamaria village after addressing a public meeting in Badgaon. According to sources, he was attacked by armed assailants. He was taken to the government hospital where doctors declared him dead. Four persons were named in the FIR including Rinku Singh and Awadhesh Sah. Jay Prakash was a close relative of Rinku Singh.
“Rinku Singh, the president of the Badgaon panchayat PACS (Primary Agricultural Credit Societies), was also pressured by comrade Satish to purchase paddy from farmers. Even now, he owes Rs 8 lakhs to the farmers as purchase arrears, for which comrade Satish was incessantly fighting,” CPI-ML (Liberation) claimed.
Rinku Singh is currently Karni Sena’s state president. According to sources, he is associated with BJP MP R.K. Singh.
Rinku Singh, however, denied any link with the BJP. “I have no link with Ranveer Sena or BJP. I am associated with Karni Sena.,” he told The Wire.
It is believed that Rinku Singh had an enmity with Manzil. In September 2021, he had claimed that Manzil may be involved in the murder of Ranveer Sena (an upper caste militant group) chief Brahmeshwar Mukhiya.
In the Satish Yadav murder case, two persons including Rinku Singh were acquitted in 2019 and two persons are still absconding. Although Rinku Singh claimed he has no enmity with Manoj Manzil, he asserted that he was framed in the Satish Yadav case.
“In panchayat elections CPI-ML (Liberation) candidates often get defeated and we win that is why they are angry with us and are framing us in fake cases,” Rinku Singh said.
Who is Manoj Manzil
Bhojpur, known as the ‘Naxalbari’ of Bihar, has been the stronghold of CPI-ML (Liberation) as the first Naxalbari kind of armed movement against feudal castes in Bihar started from this district in the ’80s. There is a great influence of the CPI-ML (Liberation) among Dalits of this area.
Born in 1984 to an agricultural labourer family in Kapurdihra village under Tarari police station in Bhojpur district, Manzil belongs to the Chamar caste which falls under the Scheduled Castes (SC) category.
Manzil is a born rebel and has been an activist since his school days. When he was in the ninth standard, along with his friends, Manzil protested for basic amenities in Bhojpur’s Dr Ambedkar Awasiya Vidyalaya where he was studying. The school authority had issued transfer certificates against them for protesting.
Manzil is hugely inspired by CPI-ML (Liberation) leader Ram Naresh Ram who died in 2010 at the age of 84.
According to CPI-ML (Liberation), Ram Naresh Ram the was first line ‘revolutionary’ who took arms against feudal forces. Manzil keeps a picture of Ram Naresh Ram along with student leader Chandrashekhar in his room.
“I have known Manzil for the last 20 years, since he was studying in Ambedkar Hostel in Arrah town and was preparing for civil services,” Amit Kumar Bunti, a CPI-ML (Liberation) leader, said.
“We had visited Ambedkar hostel. He came to us and we talked for several hours. He had a longing for the CPI-ML (Liberation) movement. He had curiosities regarding the Dalit leadership and movement of the country. He is fond of comrade Ram Naresh Ram and he would say that today it is not possible to become such a leader,” Amit Kumar told The Wire.
He further said, “The omnipresent influence of the revolutionary movement of Bhojpur, the leadership of Ram Naresh Ram and the increasing activities of AISA – student wing of CPI-ML (Liberation) – made him a man of the movement. Many movements for hostel reform took place under his leadership. He led many struggles of the students. He became the national president of the Revolutionary Youth Association.”
Due to his fighting spirit and art of strengthening the movement, he reached important positions in the party and in the 2015 Bihar assembly elections, he was given a ticket from the Agiaon assembly seat which was carved out in 2008 delimitation. The seat is said to be the stronghold of the CPI-ML (Liberation) as well as Ranveer Sena. He had contested this election while in jail, but he lost.
In the 2020 assembly elections, the party again gave him a ticket from Agiaon. This time again he was arrested , but got bail a few days before voting. He won the election and reached the assembly for the first time. In this election, he defeated his nearest rival JDU leader Prabhunath Prasad by a margin of 48,550 votes.
Even after becoming an MLA, he used to lead public movements on the streets.
In the year 2019, a 70-year-old school located near Koilwar bridge in Bhojpur was demolished for a four-lane road construction. Around 1,600 students were studying in this school.
For the reconstruction of this school, Manzil went to every student’s house and convinced their parents to protest. After the protests, the local government gave assurance that land will be allotted to build the school at another place.
In 2021, after he became an MLA, Manzil again started the agitation for this institute which later became a movement for schools in general. On September 1, 2021, he started the ‘Sadak par School’ (school on the road) movement and on this movement’s launch day, Manzil ran the school located near Koilwar bridge for 11 hours.
“During the ‘Sadak par School’ campaign he started teaching children on the road where there were no schools,” said Satyadev Kumar, member of Arrah Town Committee of CPI-ML (Liberation).
During the second wave of Covid in 2021, when there was an outcry across the country, and people were confined to their homes, Manzil used to stay in the Sadar hospital located in Arrah throughout the day to ensure that patients received the necessary facilities.
“Sadar Hospital falls in Arrah assembly constituency, whose MLA is from the BJP, but in the second wave of Covid-19, he was not seen on the streets, but Manoj Manzil remained in the hospital continuously and helped in getting treatment. Today the blood bank in Sadar Hospital remains open 24X7, the credit for this goes to Manzil,” Bhojpur-based journalist Prashant Kumar told The Wire.
“Manzil kept struggling on the streets even after becoming an MLA. For him the road and assembly were one. Interestingly, his movement was not limited to his own assembly constituency. He used to hold protests in other assembly constituencies also on grassroots issues. In such a situation, it is obvious that the MLAs of those assembly constituencies are jealous of him,” the journalist said.
After the verdict, when he was being taken to police custody, Manzil said that he was a victim of conspiracy and he would continue to fight for the rights of the poor, Dalit and downtrodden.
CPI-ML (Liberation) to move high court
The party has decided to move to the Patna high court against the district court order. Kunal said, “We will go to the Patna high court against this verdict. We are discussing it with our Patna lawyers.”
Kameshwar Singh, the lawyer who represented Manzil, believes that there are many shortcomings in the verdict and it will not stand in the Patna high court.
“The dead body was recovered after nine days of the missing complaint and in a completely decomposed state. So, it is not possible for anyone to identify the body but J.P. Singh’s son identified it,” Kameshwar Singh told The Wire. “The DNA report of the deceased is yet to come, but the court pronounced the verdict. The body was scientifically not proven to be of J.P. Singh.”
The order mentioned that the doctor who conducted the post-mortem told the court that the deceased person’s age seemed 40 years, but his son informed that his father’s age was 55 years. Notably, Chandan Singh’s age is 45 years. “This means the deceased had a son when he was just 10 years old. Is it possible?” Kameshwar Singh asked.
“There are many lacunae in this case. We are confident that the high court will deliver justice in our favour,” the lawyer said.
