Policemen allegedly shot Bharat Bhushan Tiwari (28) – an activist agitating against flooding, displacement and corruption in lower administrative system – at his Bilauti village in central Bihar’s Bhojpur district, apparently after he threw his pistol and surrendered before the security forces on June 17.

The police said that they fired on Tiwari in “self-defence” and Tiwari died when he was being transported to the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH). There were contradictions between the versions the local people and the police, fuelling outrage across Bihar and unending streams of debates in the media and local channels. Chief minister, Samrat Choudhary announced a high-level judicial probe into the incident on June 20, but the controversy refuses to die down.

Politicians from different parties including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former minister Ashwini Choubey, Purnia MP Pappu Yadav and local strongman and former MLA Rajan Tiwary called on the deceased’s family members and villagers, describing the incident as a “cold-blooded” murder of a spirited activist who was raising his voice for the cause of the people and against systemic corruption at the local level.

It’s not that Tiwari’s death was the first case of what the politicians and the people are describing as a “fake encounter”. Bihar has witnessed several cases of “fake encounters” and “custodial deaths” in the past. The police had allegedly killed a businessman, Rajesh Dhawan and his two employees on December 5, 1993, at Barachatti in Gaya in which the Supreme Court had converted the death sentence of six policemen to life sentence. As late as on December 31, 2025, the special........

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