Fear in poll time: A family mourns and villagers count their losses

A year after 20-year-old Trilochan Mahato was found hanging from a tree following the panchayat elections in West Bengal, it's poll season again and fear hangs heavy over the village that was his home.

Sundown brings with it a sense of dread in Purulia's Supurdih village with nobody going out alone and people sleeping indoors, their doors bolted tight even in these hot summer nights.

Life changed on May 31 last year, not just for the Mahato family but also for other villages in the area.

That was the day Trilochan's body was found with a placard around his neck stating he was being killed because he was a BJP worker.

It was just a few days after the results of the panchayat elections were declared in the volatile state, where the Lok Sabha polls are being conducted over seven phases.

Two days after Trilochan's killing, another BJP worker, Dulal Kumar, was found hanging in Balarampur, about 15 km from Supurdih.

The two incidents, in the aftermath of the violence in the panchayat elections in which at least 12 people were killed, grabbed national headlines.

The opposition BJP accused the state's ruling Trinamool Congress of targeting its workers and said there was no law and order in the state.

"Nothing has changed in the one year since Trilochan was killed, except no one goes out alone after sundown. With elections at our doorstep again, fear has pervaded our minds again," said Trilochan's brother Vivekananda ahead of the elections in Purulia on May 12.

The 28-year-old said he had never heard of political strife leading to anyone being killed in Supradih or in any of the villages in Balarampur block before the death of his brother, the youngest of four siblings.

"Things have, however, changed since the panchayat elections. After the death of Trilochan, we live in fear. At least 10 to 12 people from the village are always on guard outside our house. Police also comes on rounds every night," he said.

Bidhnupada, another brother, said he and Vivekananda have been unable to leave the village and get back to their work because they are scared of leaving their parents in the village.

"I worked in a hotel in Panaji. I returned home when I heard about Trilochan's death and have not gone back," Bishnupada, the third of the four siblings, told PTI as he stood with a group of villagers in front of a temporary bamboo shed in front of their modest mud house.

It is from this shed that villagers keep round-the-clock vigil to ensure safety of the family.

He earned about Rs 14,000 a month but now has to manage with the meagre earnings from their land in the village.

Vivekananda, the eldest, said he worked as a security guard in Jamshedpur in neighbouring Jharkhand and earned about Rs 10,000 a month.

A distraught Pana Mahato said she is yet to come to terms with the death of her son Trilochan, the only one who went to college.

"He left home on that fateful evening to go to the village market to spend some time after studying for his examination the next day," she said.

He never came back
The villagers and police searched for him the whole night and his body was found in a forest area the next morning. A note pinned to his t-shirt had this chilling message -- "You deserve to die for doing politics and working for BJP at this young age."
Has violence come to stay in Purulia, part of a state where clashes have long underscored bitterly fought elections?