A thousand policemen stood guard as Hindus and Muslims of Biranpur village in Chhattisgarh hugged each under a banyan tree on 16 April. After a school yard fight, communal clashes, seven FIRs, 28 arrests, and three deaths, the small village in the heart of the state resolved to end the violence. But the promised peace was conditional—Muslims can no longer marry Hindus.
Now, any Muslim man who marries a Hindu woman will have to fork out a penalty of Rs 3 lakh and face ostracism. The ‘crime’ and ‘punishment’ have no legal standing. Unlike Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Karnataka among other states, the Congress-run Chhattisgarh has no ‘love jihad’ or anti-conversion law. But in Biranpur, the peace agreement is a tenuous binding force in this village of 1,200 Hindus and 300 Muslims—for now.
The communal violence that erupted in the Biranpur between 8-10 April that resulted in the deaths of Bhuneshwar Sahu, Rahim and his son Itul has been widely reported as a small clash, in a village that has never seen rioting. But through it, the BJP has tapped into one its most effective narrative tropes to get the OBC Sahu community on its side — love jihad.
A window has opened here for the BJP in a state that was wrested by the Congress from two-term former Chief Minister Raman Singh in 2018. Since then CM Bhupesh Baghel has been actively courting the Hindu community with cow dung buybacks and briefcases, cow urine products and temple construction. The state is set to go to elections later this year, along with Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
“We’ll promise to introduce a love jihad law in the state so forceful conversions can stop,” a local Raipur BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity. Merely five days after the riots in Biranpur, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad organised a pledge-taking ceremony in Bastar for the economic boycott of Muslims and Christians. It was attended by former BJP MP from Bastar, Dinesh Kashyap.
In response, there has been an unprecedented mobilisation within the Muslim community in the state, said Nauman Akram, former National level hockey player and head of All India Ulema and Mashaikh Board in Raipur.
More than a month has passed, but Baghel hasn’t visited Biranpur yet or spoken to or about the Muslim victims. That said, the Congress government is countering the BJP’s allegations of turning Chhattisgarh into ‘Jihadgarh’ aggressively. Notices were sent to eight local BJP state leaders for alleged hate speech on social media. Baghel denounced the BJP at press conferences saying that the party has no interest in ensuring justice for the Sahu family.
“All they want to do is add fuel to the fire by going to the village in huge numbers separately. They have no interest in ensuring justice,” the CM said while talking to the media.
In Biranpur, the violence has villagers with a new mission and a new foe to blame.
“We want to live peacefully… but these inter-religion marriages are wrong. Muslim men are taking Hindu girls away,” said Jethuram Sahu, the 46-year-old sarpanch.
But peace has long left the village.
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The flare
There was always an undercurrent of Hindu tension in Biranpur. Hindu women who had married Muslim men were rejected by their families. A number of such relationships forced the concerned district Sahu Saamaj to hold meetings to discuss love jihad and the need to protect Hindu women in a state bound for elections later this year.
And then, these religious divisions began spilling from homes onto classrooms and playgrounds.
“Ever since Mahashivratri, Hindu kids keep shouting Jai Shri Ram, Jai Shri Ram in school to intimidate us. It wasn’t like this earlier. It has made school very difficult,” said a 14-year-old Class VIII Muslim student, who claimed to have witnessed the fight that day. “They were forcing us to chant Jai Shri Ram, which led to the Muslim kid picking up a piece of glass and stabbing the Hindu kid on his arm,” she said. She could not share more details, and neither did the Hindu students, who insisted that the attack was unprovoked.
But in a village that was already tense, the incident sparked more unrest.
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Love story-hate story
If a school yard fight triggered communal violence, then Tara’s marriage to a Muslim man laid bare the fractures in the village.
“I married on my own volition, and I am very happy here,” said Tara, aware of the three policemen standing near her. She refused to comment on the peace pact or ban on inter-faith unions, and walked back to her house. She was reserved in the presence of the police and two tehsildars who were watching her like a hawk, listening to every word she uttered.
But Tara and Sajith’s love story is being viewed as a larger conspiracy by members of her community, which is convinced she’s a victim of love jihad.
“We need to keep a lookout for where our daughters are going…. are they mingling with Muslims. Be wary of Muslim men, they want to convert our daughters to Islam… they want to convert every Hindu woman to Islam. This is their dream,” said a BJP worker, who identifies himself as the vice president of the Bemetara district Sahu Samaj. He had made this statement on 7 February when the Samaj organised a meeting in Biranpur after Tara and Sajith had eloped.
More than 2,500 people gathered for the meeting, said an official with the district administration. Other speeches were equally virulent.
“..The one who stole our woman away… the one who broke the heart of her parents… he’s supported by the administration….No other terrorist, double-faced bastard, thief… should dare to torture the women of Sahu samaj,” said another speaker.
Since then, the animosity among Hindu and Muslim villagers increased.
“They told us to inform the Hindu women to stay wary of Muslim men who are marrying our women,” said Krishna Sahu, Bhuneshwar’s brother.
District officials are being blamed for allowing Hindu-Muslim marriages. They cite lack of legislation.
“Miyan biwi razi toh kya karega qazi (if the couple is in agreement what business has an outsider in their matter)” an official in the district administration said.
This ‘uncertainty’ has resulted in the community starting to mobilise itself. “So far, Muslims in Chhattisgarh haven’t felt the need to have a united front, it’s a peaceful state,” said Nauman Akram. “Now, we are in the process of forming a Muslim samaaj to advocate for the rights of the community,” he said.
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The killing of Bhuneshwar Sahu
Nobody in the village knows exactly how Bhuneshwar Sahu was killed. The FIR registered has been classified as ‘sensitive’.
On 8 April after word spread that a Muslim school boy had stabbed a Hindu classmate in the arm with a shard of glass, Hindu villagers called for a meeting. The scorching heat was only adding to rising temperatures.
A group of Hindus gathered near the temple of the village, to go to the Muslim neighbourhood to “talk,” said a Hindu resident of the village. But they were allegedly met with stone pelting in the Muslim part of the village.
By the time the police arrived, a clash had broken out.
“We reached the spot in the afternoon. Some people hurled a big rock at sub-inspector BR Thakur’s head, which led him to collapse,” read the police FIR.
Sahu’s family says he was out of the village, working, and rushed back as soon as he got news of an attack. His brother alleged that he had been stabbed in the chest and also sustained injuries on his head, but officials are tight-lipped.
Anwar, a resident of the village, who has become the de-facto representative of the community and liasons with the administration, said that Hindus organised a meeting after a scuffle with the school boys. The Muslims too had gathered.
“We were discussing the next course of action. We wanted to resolve this peacefully,” Anwar claims, “But things got out of hand when Muslims and Hindus confronted each other.”
Nobody knows who stabbed Bhuneshwar, but everybody who spoke to ThePrint said there was stone pelting. So far, the police have arrested eleven people in connection with his death, and investigations are ongoing.
“The Muslim community has told us that the Hindus approached the Muslim neighbourhood with sticks in their hands, and vandalised two houses on the way. There was stone pelting, Bhuneshwar was injured by the stones that were hurled,” Akram alleged. “We don’t know who stabbed him.”
As the violence spread in Biranpur, #Chhattisgarh_Bana_Jihadgadh started trending on social media. State BJP leaders brought up the spectre of jihadis killing Hindus. Eight Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including State IT cell in-charge S Pillai and Sanjay Srivastava, the BJP state spokesperson, have been served notices by Chhattisgarh Police over the ‘hateful’ social media posts on party’s official handle.
With calls for vengeance growing louder, the authorities imposed Section 144 and restricted movement in the village. The following day, Arun Sav, BJP leader and MP from Durg, declared that he would visit Bhuneshwar’s house on 10 April. The VHP called for a state-wide bandh, which was unofficially supported by the BJP, as per reports in the media.
BJP leader Arun Sav arrived on 10 April with thousands of suppers, said an official in the administration. But he was not allowed to enter Biranpur, and was detained at Saja police station. But some people—allegedly from the Bajrang Dal—were able to cross the heavy police barricades and arrived at Biranpur, according to the complaint written in one FIR. Two Muslim houses were burnt to ashes, their residents rendered homeless.
That day, 55-year-old Rahim aka Munnu and his son Itul (35) were killed. They were tending to their goats.
“They stopped picking up the phone sometime in the afternoon. We had told them not to go… but they insisted,” Rahim’s wife said. Their bodies were found near the canal of the village by a resident, according to the FIR.
Mohammed, Rahim’s son-in-law, said the two had sustained injuries on their heads and had been badly beaten up.
“I have not been given the post mortem report yet, but we saw the injuries on their body and head while we were bathing their bodies before burial. They had been beaten mercilessly,” he said.
The FIR confirms this. It stated that Rahim had bled from his forehead and head. He had injuries on his arms and back too., while Itul, too, sustained injuries on his head, left eye and back.
“Members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal had come to our village on the day of the bandh, 10 April. They were sloganeering. Around 2 pm, we got to know that anonymous people burnt the house of Khatun B who wasn’t in the village,” the complaint filed by the patwari of the village read.
The police have filed seven FIRs in the case of the Biranpur violence, two of which have been marked as sensitive. These are the first official reports on the resulting riots in Biranpur as well as the murder of Bhuneshwar Sahu. So far, 28 people have been arrested for murder, arson, rioting, among other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. This includes the 11 accused who were arrested in connection with Bhuwaneshwar’s death, and eight in the Rahim and Itul case.
Superintendent of Police (Bemetara) Indra Kalyan Elesela said that the police are investigating the violence that took place on all three days from all possible angles.
“We’re going through photographs and videos available to us. More names will be added,” he warned.
The Chief Minister announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh and a government job for Bhuneshwar’s brother Krishna. The compensation is yet to reach them.
But a month after the violence, the authorities are yet to announce compensation for Rahim’s wife and daughters or Ituls’ wife and five-year-old son.
“Are we not victims of a communal flare up?” asked Rahim’s son in law.
The Congress party maintains that compensation will be announced in due course. “I just don’t understand why the government has to do this. Members of both communities were killed, why has only one received compensation?” Akram asked. He also claims to have raised the question with CM Baghel directly in person, and received a nod in response.
Rahim and Itul’s family moved the Raipur High Court demanding equal compensation in May. Their petition also sought a ban on far-Right Hindu organisations and against BJP MP Arun Sao for “disturbing the harmony surrounding Biranpur village”. The court noted that the government has informed the court that the compensation is under consideration, and disposed of the plea seeking compensation and protection of the family.
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The politics
The Bharatiya Janata Party has taken the position that the Biranpur riots were the result of the Congress government’s bid to “convert Chhattisgarh into a Talibani state”. Swaying the Sahu vote is crucial for the party.
The community accounts for an estimated 17-20 per cent of the state’s total population and in the last Assembly elections, the BJP won just one of 14 seats in Sahu-dominated areas.
“The heart wrenching episode in Biranpur shows that the Chhattisgarh government is insensitive towards Hindus and wants to empower Jihadi element in the state, this is shameful,” Arun Sao, MP and Sahu leader tweeted on 8 April. He went on to add that the BJP wouldn’t let Congress realise the dream of converting Chhattisgarh into a Talibani state.”
The tweet has since been deleted but ThePrint has a screenshot of it.
From its official handle, the Chhattisgarh BJP tweeted that ‘Jihadis had murdered Bhuneshwar Sahu’.
Similar tweets were posted by Ravi Bhagat, state president of Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha, and Narayan Chandel, leader of opposition in Chhattisgarh, Sanjay Shrivastav and Santosh Pandey, MP from Rajnandgaon, among others. The hashtag #Bhupesh_ka_Jihadgadh started trending.
On 12 April, Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee wrote to the Superintendent of Police, Raipur, alleging that BJP leaders have been flaring up communal sentiment in the state after the violence at Biranpur.
“Senior leaders of the BJP have been giving provocative statements to the media ever since the riots in Bemetara. Arun Sav even compared Chhattisgarh to Pakistan and Taliban, in a bid to rouse tension in the state,” the Congress party said in a letter to the Superintendent of Police, Raipur.
The police refused to talk about their investigation into the role of political leaders and their tweets in the violence.
“Our focus is on the two separate murder cases right now and to ensure peace in the district. We’ll investigate every aspect of the case,” said Superintendent of Police, Bemetara. On 21 April, Raipur Police booked Shubhankar Dwivedi, leader of the youth wing of the BJP for writing social media posts, which had a negative impact on harmony in the state.
The FIRs, arrests, and compensations are unlikely to heal the rifts. Friendships and relationships are forever fractured in Biranpur.
“Bhubaneswar was my friend. He had come to a friend’s birthday party just three days before this happened,” said 21-year-old Yusuf.
The peace pact made on the 16 of April under the Banyan tree makes little difference to the grieving families.
“My anger at the Muslim residents will always stay with me,” Krishna said in a low voice.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)