Arrah, Bihar: Signs of change are visible in Bihar’s Bilauti village. Rows of homes whose construction had been stalled for months are finally coming up on land allotted to families displaced by last year’s floods. An unfinished bridge and flood-prone low-lying areas being levelled signal that a new settlement is taking shape.
But there is no cheer in Bilauti village in Bhojpur district. Instead, villagers are upset because they believe that long-pending funds to build these homes were released only at the cost of local activist Bharat Bhushan Tiwari’s life.
They allege that the 28-year-old Tiwari was murdered in cold blood in a staged police encounter on 17 June after he repeatedly raised his voice against the administration’s alleged apathy towards flood victims who had been rehabilitated from the nearby village of Jawania.
Tiwari’s death has since snowballed into a major political controversy in Bihar with conflicting accounts of the police shooting, growing scrutiny of the police’s actions and criticism from both the opposition and members of the ruling alliance.
Police alleged Tiwari was “mentally unfit” and attacked police personnel with an illegal firearm on 17 June, forcing them to open fire in self-defence.
But a livestream from Tiwari’s own social media account appears to show him throwing away his weapon and offering to surrender moments before he was shot, which seems to suggest that he was unarmed at the time. Eyewitnesses who spoke to ThePrint corroborated that account.
ThePrint could not verify the authenticity of the video.
Since then, the government has suspended four police personnel, who were part of the team involved in the police encounter.
Police have also registered an FIR against five personnel, including then-Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Rajesh Sharma and local Station House Officer (SHO) Rajesh Malakar, invoking charges that include murder.
Separately, a judicial commission appointed by the state government is conducting an independent inquiry into the alleged fake encounter.
A loose weapon, an encounter
17 June wasn’t Bhushan Tiwari’s first brush with the police. A day earlier, on 16 June, a live video posted on Tiwari’s Facebook account, where he often highlighted local grievances, showed him seated on the verandah of his house in a heated exchange with the area’s SHO, holding a pistol in his hand.
According to residents, Tiwari was demanding that the long-stalled development work in the area be expedited, while the police were trying to persuade him to surrender the weapon. For months, Tiwari had been raising issues affecting the local villagers, particularly the uninhabitable conditions in the rehabilitation colony east of Bilauti village.
Around 70 families from Jawania village, about 20 km away, had been allotted land there by the Bihar government after last year’s floods washed away their homes. The families had been living in makeshift shanties atop a dam, 15 km from Bilauti.
What happened after the June 16 confrontation has now come under scrutiny.
Later that day, Bhojpur Superintendent of Police (SP) Raj said the team led by the local SHO found Tiwari “mentally unfit” and, therefore, chose not to initiate any legal action.
Asked why the alleged illegal firearm was not seized from Tiwari, a senior police officer acknowledged that the SHO had failed to deal with the situation promptly, a lapse that, he admitted, ultimately led to the events of 17 June.
According to Tiwari’s family, before leaving on 16 June, the SHO asked Tiwari’s mother to mix sleeping pills into his food so the family could take the weapon from him without resistance.
The family, however, said they were too afraid to follow the instructions. Police returned later that night and tried to persuade Tiwari to surrender the pistol.
But the standoff took a dramatic turn early on 17 June.
At around 6 am, another video livestreamed from Tiwari’s Facebook account showed him standing outside his house with a pistol. During the broadcast, he fired a single shot towards a police team stationed a few metres away.
Police officers said they did not immediately return fire as the team present at the spot was not equipped with bulletproof vests.
“After he fired at the police party, a message was sent to the local Special Task Force (STF), which immediately deployed its personnel,” a Bhojpur police officer said.
Around the same time, Tiwari’s family alleges, his father was summoned to the local police station on the pretext of discussing a peaceful resolution. The family claims he was deliberately kept there for hours and was not allowed to leave.
By around 9 am, police contacted Tiwari again, according to the family. They assured him that the administration was ready to address the issues he had been protesting, including filling low-lying areas and constructing roads, and asked him to come to the rehabilitation site to identify the pending work.
“They told him that his demands would be fulfilled soon and asked him to come to the spot,” said Tiwari’s sister-in-law, Suman Devi. “Believing them, he went. At first, only one police vehicle followed him, but soon several more arrived.”
Residents followed Tiwari to the site, where a large police contingent, including the STF, surrounded him. Multiple eyewitnesses alleged that villagers were driven away through a lathi charge and warned to leave because “bullets could come their way”.
At 9:58 am, Tiwari began what would become his final Facebook livestream. By then, the STF personnel, now wearing bulletproof vests, had reached the spot.
“You have come as if I am a terrorist,” he said in the video, while demanding that politicians stop making false election promises and that roads, drainage, electricity and other basic infrastructure be built without corruption.
In the same livestream, Tiwari appeared to signal a willingness to surrender, saying he now had hope that his demands would be addressed. Moments later, he threw away his pistol, which was immediately picked up by a police officer standing nearby.
Minutes later, witnesses said they heard gunshots. Tiwari sustained three bullet wounds to his lower body and was then rushed to the hospital. He died that evening.
Wanted to surrender, police prepared for encounter
Local residents said Tiwari wanted to surrender, but the police came prepared for an encounter.
“He came with a pistol in his hand from one side of the road, while the police had started assembling from the other side,” said 65-year-old resident Jhokar Bin, who was at the spot.
Another resident, Neeta Devi, said she saw the events unfold from close by. “He declared that he is surrendering, and a police officer convinced him that his demands related to facilities would be met by the administration,” she said.
Bin told ThePrint that Tiwari was loaded into the rear of a vehicle before the police team took him away. “He was waving his hand and said, ‘Mai wapis aaunga’ (I will come back), and that the development work would be completed,” Bin recalled.
Witnesses said Tiwari was alive at Bilauti village and alleged that police fired two more shots into his body, leading to his death.
“He was alive till the location where the crowd had assembled. Police fired two more bullets, likely between the spot and the PMCH (Patna Medical College and Hospital), where he died during treatment,” Bharat’s sister-in-law told ThePrint.
Sources in the Bihar police headquarters, however, rejected these claims.
By the evening of 17 June, Bhojpur police released another statement confirming an encounter. The statement contradicted its initial comments a day earlier, where Tiwari was declared “mentally unfit”.
“On 17 June, 2026, at approximately 09:00 AM, the police received information that an individual named Bharat Bhushan Tiwari was brandishing a pistol and firing into the air. The police and the Bhojpur STF team repeatedly called upon the individual to surrender; however, he continued to fire intermittently at the police with the pistol he was holding,” the Bhojpur SP said in a statement on 17 June.
“To bring the situation under control, STF personnel equipped with bulletproof jackets attempted to close in on the individual, but when the police got close to him, the individual fired at the police, and the police team opened fire in self-defence and to protect the public, striking the individual in the leg. The individual subsequently passed away while undergoing treatment at PMCH. Further action is being taken.”
Sources in the Bihar Police headquarters said that an internal inquiry into the incident confirmed that the STF constable Akshay Kumar used “excessive force” in breach of “clear briefing not to open fire” at the individual.
“There was a clear briefing and demarcation of two members who were allowed to engage with the individual in case the need arose. The constable was found to have fired three bullets into Tiwari’s leg, one of which ricocheted and hit a vein in the groin area, leading to his death,” said a senior Bihar Police officer.
“The medical report is faulty and not prepared with proper examination of entry and exit wounds. An exit wound and the wound created due to ricochet have been taken as separate wounds. A comprehensive examination has been done, and only three bullets were fired into the individual,” said another police officer.
Police sources added that constable Akshay Kumar faced imminent arrest, based on a report being prepared by the Shahbad Range Deputy Inspector General (DIG), who was asked to investigate the case.
On the other hand, Tiwari’s mother Asha Devi (60), and the family allege he was killed illegally despite surrendering his weapon, and blame the administration for the killing.
“I want justice for my son, whose only fault was that he raised his voice against the injustice to flood victims by the local administration. Politicians have come and promised strong action against them,” she said, wiping her tears with her saree.
Tiwari’s parents deposed before the commission of the retired Patna High Court Judge Vinod Kumar Sinha on Saturday in Arrah town.
But the Bhojpur SP said that the police came and took action against Tiwari based only on an alert that he was brandishing a weapon.
“An alert came in the form of a video where he appeared with a pistol, and a call was forwarded to the Shahpur Police station. Before the alert about him using a weapon, the police had not initiated any action while he had been raising questions about the same issue for nearly a year,” the Bhojpur SP told ThePrint.
He added that a detailed investigation regarding the source and origin of the weapon is underway.
Ruling alliance, oppn on the same page
As outrage grew, the government faced mounting pressure from both the opposition and the allies in the ruling alliance.
Opposition leaders, such as Sudama Prasad, a local MP from the Communist Party of India (M-L), who was the first political leader to meet the family, blamed the encounter on the mandate issued by Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary, who also holds the home department portfolio.
“He boasts of giving the police a free hand to deal with criminals within 48 hours of the registration of a crime. When such instructions come from the top, police personnel in the field formations are bound to follow them with impunity,” Prasad told ThePrint at his party’s district headquarters in Arrah.
“The acts of Tiwari were not legal at all when he was carrying a pistol. But he was clearly surrendering and throwing the weapon. There was no valid reason for the police to fire upon him, and the reason of self-defence attributed to the incident is just an excuse to cover up the crime. All these police officers should be tried in a court of law,” he added.
The Bihar Police has also faced questions from members of the state cabinet, as well as a Union Minister and members of the ruling alliance.
Within days of the incident, Janata Dal (United) national president Sanjay Jha also raised questions over the authenticity of the police claims about the firing and sought action against the policemen.
“The video that has surfaced in the Bharat Tiwari encounter case certainly raises suspicions. The state government has swiftly suspended four policemen, but that is not enough. There should be a time-bound investigation into this matter by a senior official, and action should be taken against those found guilty,” Jha told reporters in Patna.
His party colleague, and member of the Bihar cabinet, Ashok Chaudhary, also visited the Tiwaris’ house and said the killing was “wrong” while assuring strong action against the officers involved in the incident.
Union Minister of Food Processing Industries Chirag Paswan was another member of the NDA who visited the Tiwari residence and sought the immediate arrest of the police personnel accused of the alleged fake encounter.
“It was a murder in the name of a police encounter… all those accused in the case must be arrested,” he told the media.
“If Bharat had surrendered, he could have been arrested, and a thorough investigation could have been done in the case. Why did the cops kill him?” Paswan said after meeting Tiwari’s family last week.
“If the upholders of law start violating it, people will lose faith in the law of the land.”
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)
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