After 10 months and High Court scrutiny, 5 Bihar officials arrested in missing Dalit man case

Two excise department officials and three home guards are among seven people arrested over the disappearance of a 31-year-old Dalit man following a raid in Bhojpur district’s Jagdishpur area in August 2025. The case concerns Sanoj Kumar, who was allegedly detained during an excise department raid at Dharhara Musahar Toli near Bihiya on August 13, 2025, in connection with a liquor-related case.

He has been missing since. While excise officials have maintained that he escaped from custody, his family has alleged that he was killed in custody, and that evidence was subsequently concealed. The five officials arrested are Assistant Sub-inspectors Dheeraj Kumar and Raj Kumar, and Home Guards Dharmendra Paswan, Umesh Kumar Yadav and Raju Kumar Singh.

Also arrested are two private drivers, Surendra Kumar Singh and Vikash Kumar. The arrests followed sustained monitoring by the Patna High Court, which was informed Thursday that six suspects had already been arrested and the remaining accused, private driver Surendra Kumar Singh, was being taken into custody the same day.

While hearing the habeas corpus petition filed by Sanoj's father, Gauri Shankar Ram, a Division Bench of Justice Rajeev Ranjan Prasad and Justice Kumar Manish was informed by the Bhojpur SP that interrogation of the arrested excise personnel had revealed contradictory versions of the incident.

Citing the court's July 2 order, the SP said Sanoj had been taken into custody with two others. During interrogation, "the Excise Police Officers who have been arrested… have been changing their statements and they are making incongruous and inconsistent statements”, the SP said.

The SP further informed the court that investigators had learnt there was "a scuffle with the victim Sanoj" and that "the private driver who was driving the Excise Police Vehicle had put a towel around his neck and he was being pulled up".

The SP also said excise officials had cited CCTV footage to support their claim that Sanoj escaped by opening the rear compartment of the vehicle. After briefly viewing the footage, however, the Patna High Court said in its oral observations that the vehicle appeared to be “a Bolero Vehicle which is fully closed from outside" and that “unless the backside gate is opened, it would not be possible to flee away with a jump”.

The HC ordered protection of key witnesses after police said the two others detained with Sanoj were “perhaps afraid of coming out with the truth”. It also recorded the submission of Sanoj’s father, Gauri Shankar Ram, that several people had approached him to “cover up” the case, directed his protection, and asked police to investigate the allegations.

The latest developments follow a series of critical observations by the high court over the past two hearings. On June 30, the Bench recorded that Sanoj had telephoned his father at 6.35 pm and again at 6.43 pm on the day of the raid, informing him that excise officials had detained him.

Investigators also found that one of his mobile phones last showed the tower location of the Jagdishpur excise police station, the court said. The court further noted that excise officers Raj Kumar and Dheeraj Kumar Singh initially claimed several detainees had been released without mentioning Sanoj, and handed over his mobile phone to investigators only the next day.

It observed that the phone had not been sent for forensic examination. The high court expressed dissatisfaction with the probe, saying it was "moving slowly and slowly" and giving an impression that investigators were "only helping the accused persons".

On June 24, the court noted that although seven members of the excise raiding team had emerged as suspects 10 months earlier, they had neither been arrested nor interrogated. It also observed that if the pace of the investigation did not match the seriousness of the allegations, it could consider transferring the probe to an independent agency.

The matter will next be heard on July 7, when Bhojpur police are expected to place further developments before the high court. Himanshu Harsh is a Correspondent with Read More