Nitish Kumar's dilemma

What the Ram Navami violence in Bihar Sharif signals for Bihar / Politics

- SAGAR

There is no official version of how the violence started in Bihar Sharif, a town in Bihar’s Nalanda district, where I grew up. On 30 March, in Sasaram—a city six hours from Bihar Sharif by road—a heated exchange between Hindu and Muslim youth during Ram Navami processions led to communal violence, according to the state police. The next day, fights broke out in Bihar Sharif, various residents told me, when revelers, armed with swords, stomped over a roadside burial ground in Gagan Devan—a Muslim neighbourhood on the southern end of the city. In the ensuing violence, a Hindu mob set a mosque and a century-old madrasa on fire at Murarpur, a few yards away from Gagan Devan. Several shops, buildings and vehicles were burned down. Many people were injured and a Hindu man, belonging to other backward classes, was reported to be killed in the violence.