Nawada (Bihar): Lakshminiya Devi was cooking dal one evening in her ramshackle mud-and-brick hut in Bihar’s Dedaur village, when she was startled by the sound of a gunshot.
Before she knew it, a group of armed men firing in the air had burnt down 34 of 80 houses in her Dalit tola or colony in Nawada district, leaving more than 50 desperately poor families without a roof over their heads.
It’s been more than 10 days since their houses were reduced to ashes over a decades-old land dispute, but the traumatised Dalit families are still living in fear — without a clue about when their lives will return to normal.
Around 200 people have been living under constant surveillance in cramped tarpaulin tents the district administration has set up not far from their charred homes in the village ringed by coconut trees.
This story was originally published in theprint.in. Read the full story here.