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DEPENDING on whom you ask, there were two Surya Hansdas. For his village Lalmatia in Boarijor block of Godda district, he was a man dedicated to tribal welfare, who ran a school providing free education and lodging to Adivasi children. For police, the 45-year-old who entered politics sometime in 2009 and changed parties several times, was a troublemaker, with 25 criminal cases against him.
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On the evening of August 10, Hansda, who was once associated with the BJP, was killed in a police “encounter”. While a pall of gloom hangs over Lalmatia, with videos of children of his school crying over his body going viral, police point to the cases registered against him across Godda and neighbouring areas, on charges of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping for ransom, extortion, criminal conspiracy, possession of illegal arms and rioting. One case police talk about is of Hansda allegedly breaking the hand of an officer who had gone to arrest him.
However, details regarding the cases against him remain fuzzy, with police clamming up as the issue snowballs.
“Surya’s killing is not just his encounter. It is an encounter of the entire future of Adivasi children,” says his younger brother Pramod Hansda, who lives in Lalmatia and works with Eastern Coalfields Limited (ECL), the largest employer in these parts.
Jharkhand BJP chief Babulal Marandi – with whom Hansda’s family claims he was close – has announced a seven-member team to “probe” the alleged encounter, calling it a murder.
Surya’s burial site at his home, located near the graves of his father and son. (Shubham Tigga)
Hansda was one of five siblings – four brothers and a sister – born to Raja Hansda, who served for a time as mukhiya of Lalmatia village. A graduate in English from Sahibganj College – a rarity in an area where few go for higher studies – Raja believed fervently in tribals getting a good education, the family says.
He donated land for the local church authority to start a school, says Pramod.
Hansda studied at St John’s Missionary School in the village and later joined a college in Godda. However, he dropped halfway through his BA course.
In the early 2000s, after Jharkhand had been carved out of Bihar, Hansda got a job as a worker at ECL, as compensation for the government taking over an acre of the family land.
According to Pramod, it was then that Hansda was attracted to activism, with tribals feeling shortchanged by the government on land compensation. “He was labelled an extremist for raising Adivasi issues,” he says.
This coincided with rising enmity between the Hansdas and a family in the village. When one of the members of the family got killed, Hansda and his three brothers were suspected by police and went into hiding.
According to Pramod, things were not the same for Hansda after that, with police arresting him from Dumka in 2009. Soon after, their father died, and Hansda decided to jump into the electoral fray.
He got a ticket from the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha (JVM) for the Borio Assembly seat. The JVM had been formed by Marandi – the first CM of Jharkhand (2000-2003) – after falling out with the BJP.
Hansda’s mother Neelmani Murmu, who is now the mukhiya of Lalmatia, points out that despite not being able to campaign, Hansda got 26,000 votes and finished third, attributing both the ticket to him as well as his performance to his popularity among the Santhals.
In 2014, Hansda again contested from the Borio Assembly seat on the JVM ticket, and this time increased his vote tally, though he again finished third.
In 2019, when the JVM merged with the BJP and Marandi returned to the party, Hansda followed. He contested on the BJP ticket from Borio in the 2019 Assembly polls, securing around 59,000 votes this time. However, he still finished a substantial margin behind the JMM candidate.
But in 2024, Hansda was denied a ticket, and decided to move to the fast-rising Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM) led by popular newcomer Jairam Mahato. The JLKM won only 1 seat, though, and Hansda suffered a humiliating defeat from Borio.
By then, as per the family, Hansda had decided to pursue his dream of starting a school for tribal children. During Covid, when he lost the eldest of his five children, Raja Raj, 8, he almost gave up the idea, says his wife Sushila, but persuasion by the community changed his mind.
Hansda named his school ‘Chand Bhairav Raja Raj’ (after two tribal brothers who had participated in a Santhal agitation against the British, and his son). The school, with classes from 1 to 8, was run by a trust headed by Hansda, out of the family’s ancestral home, with separate hostel sections for girls and boys.
Sushila says that the school, affiliated with the CBSE, drew children not only from Godda but other districts such as Sahibganj, and Deoghar, and even Bihar, with 350 currently enrolled with it. “From books to uniforms, he provided everything free,” Sushila says.
Since the school opened around five years ago, Pramod says, classes were never suspended – till Hansda’s killing. “The children lost not just a teacher, but a father.”
The mother of one of the students at Hansda’s school says: “We come from very poor families, from remote areas, and have no money. This school is the future of our community.”
A hostel room at the school premises where Adivasi children have left behind their belongings. (Shubham Tigga)
The alleged encounter in which Hansda was killed followed a firing incident in an ECL mining area in late May. Police allege that Hansda was also involved in setting trucks on fire at a crusher mill in Sahibganj.
However, they have given conflicting versions of how the alleged encounter happened. In the FIR, they say they captured Hansda from near a hill in Nawadih village of Deoghar district and were driving away with him when his associates ambushed them. Hansda snatched a rifle from a policeman and tried to run away, they said, causing them to fire back.
But, in a press release issued by it, police said they were conducting a search operation for Hansda when his group started firing, and that he in the melee snatched a rifle and died in the exchange of fire.
His “associates” remain unidentified in the FIR.
Police also claim to have recovered arms and ammunition from Hansda and his men, including allegedly two pistols.
In the press conference held a day after Hansda’s killing, SP Mukesh Kumar said the case against Hansda in the firing incident at ECL mining area had been filed by the company’s Senior Security Inspector, Baldev Yadav.
Yadav told The Indian Express that he never saw the group “of around 30-40” involved in firing on the intervening night of May 28-29 from up close, and that they were all wearing masks. “By the time we rushed on hearing the shooting, they had disappeared, leaving behind 40–50 empty cartridges. They had come with petrol, apparently to set vehicles on fire. But because our team arrived quickly, they could not carry out their plan,” he says.
Yadav adds that he was shocked when he heard on the news that the Godda police were linking his case to Hansda, as he had not named anybody. “We would hear Hansda’s name whenever mine-related disputes came up, but I never had any direct information about him,” Yadav says.
The Indian Express’s attempts to reach the Godda SP were unsuccessful.
At the August 11 press conference, where he mentioned the long list of cases against Hansda, SP Kumar also said: “Previously in Sahibganj, when the then DSP went to arrest him, Hansda attacked the DSP and broke his hand.”
Approached by The Indian Express, Lalmatia police in-charge Roushan Kumar and DSP Chandrashekhar said they had no information about Hansda attacking the former DSP.
Surya’s ancestral home in Lalmatia village. (Shubham Tigga)
Marandi has pointed to the “contradictions” in the police versions and said only a CBI probe can arrive at the truth. Accusing “criminal-minded” elements within the Jharkhand Police of “harassing opponents through false cases” and “protecting criminals”, the BJP state chief said Hansda was targeted because some in power feared he would mobilise Adivasis to fight for their rights and resources.
Hansda’s current party JKLM asks why, if he was an accused, he was not produced in court after arrest, chargesheeted, and put on trial, rather than being killed in an alleged encounter at night. Calling the police role “suspicious”, JKLM general secretary Vijay Singh also demanded a CBI probe.
On Thursday, the government announced that it was handing over the probe to the CID. Marandi and another BJP leader, Arjun Munda, are expected to visit Hansda’s home in Lalmatia on August 17, to attend a death ritual.
Neelmani Murmu says that contrary to what police claim, Hansda was recovering from a bout of typhoid at his aunt’s house in Deoghar when he was arrested, with his hands and legs tied. Showing photographs of Hansda’s body, she says he had offered to surrender but was instead arrested. “How could he flee when he was ill and his hands and legs were bound? His body had burn marks in several places, and his thighs bore marks from being beaten with sticks.”
She adds that Hansda’s only fault was that he was an Adivasi. “No allegations have yet been proven against him… while there are several politicians around with more than 50 criminal cases against them… Even terrorists like Kasab got due process, but Adivasi voices like Surya’s are always silenced by bullets.”
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