Tension flared up in north Bihar’s Forbesganj town on Thursday, earlier this week, when a pickup driver was beheaded allegedly by a roadside vendor, who was subsequently thrashed by locals and succumbed to injuries at a hospital. According to Jitendra Kumar, the Superintendent of Police (SP) for Araria district, the incident occurred when Nabi Hussain, a pickup driver, argued with Ravi Chauhan. Meanwhile, the visuals of Hussain’s head lying on the street made rounds on the internet.
“Chauhan used to sell sattu (roasted gram flour) at a local market where he picked up a quarrel with Hussain and attacked him with a dagger, which has been seized by police,” the SP said.
“Onlookers caught hold of Chauhan and thrashed him until he was rescued by a police party, which rushed to the spot upon hearing about the incident. Chauhan was taken to a hospital where he succumbed to injuries. The bodies of both the deceased have been sent for post-mortem examination. Further investigations were on,” he said.
As the footage made the rounds on the internet, the reaction poured in from both politicians and the public. Sharing the image, the leader of the opposition, Tejashwi Yadav, slammed the government for the “horrific state of affairs” in Bihar.
“A man publicly slit another man’s throat right in the middle of the market and roamed around with his severed head amidst hundreds of people. Later, the family of the deceased murdered the killer in turn,” he alleged.
Meanwhile, accusing the police of “scrambling to save their own skins,” the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) national working president said.
“This incident shows the degraded state of the law-and-order situation in Bihar. While the ruling coalition leaders are engrossed in the game of musical chairs for the ‘CM seat,’ incidents of loot, murder, and rape are rising every day in Bihar,” he claimed.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi will come back for elections five years later and speak about ‘jungle raj’ while the situation here in Bihar is pathetic at present,” Yadav said.
“The poison that the BJP government is injecting into society through its propaganda is heart-wrenching,” he alleged.
