BHOPAL: In a horrific incident on Sunday, a 40-year-old farmer was brutally beaten to death, allegedly by local BJP leader Mahendra Nagar and his aides in Ganeshpura village of Madhya Pradesh's Guna district.
The farmer, identified as Ramswaroop Dhakad, was first mercilessly beaten with sticks and rods and was then allegedly run over by an MUV on Sunday afternoon. The brutality, reportedly linked to a dispute over six bighas of land in the adjoining Baran district of Rajasthan, did not end there. The accused men, armed with guns, allegedly prevented anyone in the village from taking the gravely injured farmer to the hospital for nearly an hour, ensuring his death.
While villagers remained silent spectators out of fear of the gun-toting men accompanying Nagar, the farmer's daughters, who rushed to save him, were also assaulted and humiliated.
"When I went to save my father, they pushed me down, sat on me, tore my clothes, and fired shots to scare us. My mother and father were going to the fields when Mahendra, Harish, and Gautam attacked them. Then they ran over my father with the Thar. He screamed, but no one dared to help, as the attackers were armed with guns," recounted the murdered farmer’s daughter.
According to locals, Mahendra Nagar — the BJP’s local booth committee chief and a former office-bearer of the party's farmers’ wing in Guna district — has long run a reign of terror in Ganeshpura village under the Fatehgarh police station area.
"He has been grabbing land for years. At least 25 farmers have sold their land at throwaway prices and left the village. Those who dared to resist were either assaulted or driven out. Ramswaroop refused to surrender to Nagar’s terror and held on to his ten bighas of land in Ganeshpura, while his relatives lived in the adjoining Pachlavada village in Rajasthan. That defiance finally cost him his life," a villager said on condition of anonymity.
Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP–Bamori) Vivek Asthana confirmed the incident and said a long-running land feud between the deceased farmer and a relative of the local BJP leader was the motive behind the brutal murder.
"Ramswaroop Dhakad had a dispute with Kanhaiya Nagar over six bighas of land in adjoining Rajasthan. Kanhaiya, a resident of Pachlavada, is a relative of Mahendra. It was this long-running land feud that actually triggered Sunday’s incident. Mahendra, Kanhaiya, and 13–14 others, including some women, attacked Ramswaroop. He sustained multiple fractures all over his body. His daughters, too were assaulted. All of them were taken to the Guna district hospital, but doctors could not save Ramswaroop," Asthana said.
A case has been registered against 14 persons, including Mahendra Nagar, his sons Nitesh and Devendra, wife Kamlesh Bai Nagar, nephew Jitendra, and two other women from the Nagar family, under multiple BNS sections related to murder, criminal conspiracy, assault, and outraging the modesty of women.
One of the accused, Hukum Singh, Mahendra’s elder brother, has been arrested, while raids are underway to nab the absconding accused.
Meanwhile, Guna district BJP president Dharmendra Sikarwar, while confirming Nagar’s association with the party, has sought his immediate expulsion.
"Mahendra Nagar is a party worker and the local booth chief. We have written to senior party leaders seeking his immediate removal," Sikarwar said.
According to informed sources, Mahendra Nagar was among the Congress workers who joined the BJP in 2020, after Jyotiraditya Scindia and 22 loyalist MLAs quit the party, toppling the Kamal Nath-led government. Guna is one of three districts in the Gwalior-Chambal region that make up the Guna Lok Sabha constituency, represented by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
