Laxmanpur Bathe massacre

Laxmanpur Bathe is a village in Arwal district in Bihar state, India, on the river Son, about 125–km from Patna.

1997 Laxmanpur Bathe Carnage

The village was the site of a massacre of 58 Dalits by the upper-caste Ranvir Sena on the night of 1 December 1997. Luxmanpur Bathe,125 km from Patna and along the banks of Sone, was targeted because Ranvir Sena members believed the village's Dalits, mostly poor and landless, were sympathizers of Maoists behind the killing of 37 upper caste men in Bara in Gaya district in 1992. Ranvir Sena, a milita of upper caste landlords, was created by Bhumihars to take on the Naxalites, who had several Dalits as foot soldiers. ”"

On 7 April 2010, the Additional District and Sessions Judge Vijai Prakash Mishra of the Patna Civil Court sentenced 16 men to death and 10 to life imprisonment for the massacre. While pronouncing the verdict, sessions judge Mishra described the December 1, 1997, killing as a “stigma on civil society and rarest of rare cases of brutality. ""

58 Dalits were gunned down including 27 women and 16 children by the Ranvir Sena at Laxmanpur Bathe in Jehanabad on December 1, 1997, sending shock waves across the country.The Lalu Prasad-led RJD government was then ruling the state.In the well-planned operation, about 100 Ranbir Sena activists carrying firearms had descended on Lakshmanpur Bathe at around 11 pm.They forced their way into huts by breaking open the doors and fired indiscriminately at people who were asleep. The entire hamlet located on the banks of the Sone river was virtually decimated in the attack that lasted more than three hours. The youngest victim was one-year-old. ”"

The then President K R Narayanan had expressed his shock and dismay over the mass murder of 58 Dalits in Central Bihar. In his strong-worded reaction, he had termed the massacre as one of the most shameful incidents in independent India.""

The Laxmanpur-Bathe case was pending with no witnesses turning up and the police sitting over it. But it was only in December 2008, that charges were framed against 46 Ranvir sena men,11 years after the massacre. Altogether 91 of 152 witnesses in the case deposed before the court. Sessions Judge Mishra, on conclusion of trial in the case on April 1, had fixed April 7, 2010, as the date for announcing the verdict. Earlier, the case was transferred to Patna from Jehanabad following a Patna High Court order in October, 1999. ”" Patna High Court acquitted all accused persons on 09/10/13, in Appeal. Judgement awaited.