These Are the Biggest Crime Sights of Mirzapur

It was the middle of the day, when we (my photographer and I) were riding through the Interstellar-esque dust bowl of Mirzapur, looking for someone to take us to Bhawanipur. The tiny village, which according to latest estimates, has a population of just under 800 people, had witnessed an unusual shootout for eastern Uttar Pradesh—one devoid of gangs and political encounters, which the region is infamous for.

The said incident took place on March 9, 2001, when in the middle of the night, police personnel rained in on Bhawanipur and shot dead 16 people, inside one house. One of them was a 14-year-old bystander. The police claimed they were all naxalites, while the Left parties alleged they were innocent tribals and that the police had killed 26 people, but disposed off just 10 bodies. "Many of them (tribals) had come out of their hiding places to surrender to the police," claimed a villager anonymously at the time, "but they were lined up and shot dead."

The District Magistrate defended the police’s action, saying, “We have enough evidence that some small farmers are closely connected with the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC)." The MCC is used interchangeably with naxals, although there’s a stark difference between the two. Among many core differences, Naxalites take part in elections and many of them are registered parties with the Election Commission of India, while Maoists do not support elections at all.

“I was 10 years old. I just remember that the police came. There were some people inside our house when the incident happened… It’s not that we were naxals. Our family wasn’t involved. They (naxals) entered our house suddenly. Their plan was different. They just came to eat and drink, not kill anyone," Narayan told VICE.

The Bhawanipur encounter, one of the biggest naxal encounters in the region’s history, led to a Naxal-Police conflict that hasn’t been resolved to this day. After Bhawanipur, the naxals allegedly responded by walking into a Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) house in Koradih Mirzapur in broad daylight, and looted state-controlled weapons. It was later found out that it was the MCC who carried out the loot, and not naxals. When we met the members of Koradih village though, they still think that it was the naxals who looted the house.

“The PAC house was a mud house,” says Mishra pointing to it. “There were rooms, and it had a verandah in the front and back. The PAC was living here as this was the only empty house they could find. They had a tent outside where they used to cook. There were 15 PAC people who lived here. The day their camp was looted, five of the 15 were on holiday. A couple of them had kept rozas. Around 4-5PM that day, when some of them had gone to the village to have paan, only a couple of people and a cook were left in the house. Naxals came towards the house from both sides of the road, even from behind, and looted their weapons. They didn’t touch a single villager. The entire village was in shock, also because the police suspected that some villagers had aided the loot. We hadn’t seen the naxals before that, and never saw them afterwards.”

“I was playing outside this house down the road from the PAC house. People came in dressed as farmers, but carrying cricket bats. After they looted the place, they fired a couple of times in the air, so all of us got scared. We ran in one direction, and they ran towards the forest which is just four kilometers away. The police came two-three hours after that," Shankar remembered.

Things hit a crescendo, when a slogan made its way to local authorities from nearby jungles—“Khoradih toh jhanki hai, pura khel baki hai (Khoradih was just a trailer, the film is yet to be released).” Shit hit the fan, with news filtering in about an alleged naxal plan of blowing up a police station in Mirzapur. It made the authorities build a very literal barricade, placing policeman atop the police station. We went to the station in Marihan, and found it to be quite hospitable to strangers.

“Naxals lived in the jungle here (Marihan) because it’s easier to access nearby villages from here. They tell villagers to make them food or else they will kill them," Anil Kumar, a Diwan at the Mirzapur Police HQ told VICE. "So then they just send it. It’s also difficult for the police’s mukhbirs (informants) to track them in jungles. And how will the police go into these jungles? They could be in random valleys or caves. The police can’t go into every cave; they’re too scared. Going into unknown places where others are prepared, wahaan mar bhi sakte hain (we can get killed there too).”

The geography of the area and the rest of Mirzapur (in addition to the two other red areas, ie those parts affected by Naxal and Maoist insurgency, like Sonebadra and Chandauli) makes it difficult for state authorities to chase their opponents. We walked through a jungle, minutes away from the location of the Khoradih incident, with a member of the local Homeguard named Rami Chauhan,talking about the general instability in the area. The dude was positive, but seemed severely outgunned.

“Many saris and blouses were found that night (in 2001) in the house, despite there not being many women there. The men were dressed as female farmers, trying to get away from the police. They used villagers for food, lodgings, even mukhbirs, but the police found out. We also did then what they do to us, aur phir goli chalne lagi (and then bullets were fired).”

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