The evening a 12-year-old dispute spilled blood: Behind death of Rajasthan ex-MLA Atar Singh Bhadana

Two days after former BJP MLA Atar Singh Bhadana was beaten to death by a large crowd in Bhonda village, located around 50 km from state capital Jaipur, it is empty of its men. Five people have been arrested, with police looking for others.

As they tend to the cattle, the women say the story is not as straightforward as it seems from the accounts of what transpired on Sunday evening. For 12 years, they say, they have been protesting against Bhadana’s stone-crusher unit, and its trucks for blocking the path their cattle used to reach the grazing lands. They were doing the same on October 11 evening, the villagers allege, and were first “fired upon” by Bhadana’s men. The attack, the women say, was a retaliation.

Police sources said no evidence had been received of any firing.

Bhadana was a one-time MLA, who represented the Bayana constituency from 2003 to 2008. His subsequent attempt to get re-elected, on the Congress ticket, failed, after which he had returned to the BJP.

As per the FIR lodged by Bhadana’s wife Kamlesh, who was present with him when the incident happened, the mob set upon Bhadana and his aide Gagan Sharma in a “planned” attack. She has named 65 people from Bhonda village and claimed they had issued threats to her husband earlier too.

Ghatari villagers protest against illegal stone mining and rising diseases in the area. (Express photo by Parul Kulshrestha)

Kamlesh has said she and Bhadana were at a shelter built at the stone-crusher site when a group of 70-80 people arrived around 6-7 pm, armed with sticks, axes, iron rods, and firearms. While she ran up to the first floor and locked herself in, Kamlesh said, the men caught hold of Bhadana and hit him on the head, hands, legs, back, ribs and chest. Even when Bhadana started bleeding from his head, the attackers reportedly kept beating him, till he fell unconscious.

Kamlesh said the attackers also tried to break down her door, but were unable to. After that, they allegedly set fire to the shelter, which also had employees inside, and vandalised the crusher machinery, causing extensive damage. Those inside the shelter were lucky that the fire didn’t spread and they were able to make their way out, as per sources.

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Weir Police Station SHO Dhirendra Baswal (Bhonda falls in Weir tehsil) said that while they left for the spot as soon as they heard of the attack, because it was already dark and due to the bad road and remote location, they lost their way and made it only one-and-a-half hours later. “Allegations of both the villagers and the victims are being investigated, and a report will be filed soon,” he said.

On Tuesday night, the state government suspended three officials of the Weir Police Station, including SHO Baswal and an Additional SP.

Police also said that Kamlesh, who rushed her husband and the others injured to hospital, took with her the Digital Video Recorder in which footage of CCTV cameras around the site is recorded. Sources said the family has told the police it will hand it over soon.

The remains of the day

Two days later, the site is strewn with machine and vehicle parts, with broken glass and burnt bedding across the shelter room. Blood stains still mark the spot where Bhadana was killed, with three guards standing around it.

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Stone mines have been operational in the area since 1997 and in 2012, Bhadana acquired partnership in one of the units. This was four years after his MLA tenure ended.

A senior local official confirmed the long-standing dispute between Bhadana and villagers since then.

“Villagers went to court against Bhadana alleging that grazing had been hampered and a water stream blocked due to vehicles that were part of the mining operations. The High Court ordered that a separate grazing land be allotted and the mining company be told to construct a culvert on the stream. The Supreme Court subsequently stayed the construction of the culvert but upheld the direction to provide separate grazing land,” an official said.

In 2025, Congress Bharatpur MP Sanjna Jatav held a hunger strike against alleged illegal mining on pasture land. She also posted on Twitter against Bhadana, saying he had been able to operate due to the BJP government’s “protection”. Several Congress leaders, including Karoli-Dholpur MP Bhajanlal Jatav, attended the protest.

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Bharatpur SP Rajesh Meena said Bhadana and the villagers filed multiple FIRs against each other over the years. “In some FIRs, a chargesheet has been filed.”

Kamlesh’s FIR refers to an incident from last month, when some people allegedly entered the mining area, assaulted people, vandalised property, and stole machinery. After an FIR was registered, Kamlesh said, the accused threatened to kill Bhadana.

Multiple efforts to reach Kamlesh were unsuccessful.

Asked about illegal mining in the area, Bharatpur Collector Qummer Ul Zaman refused to comment.

Not just Bhonda

In 2015, a committee of five members was set up in Ghatari village, 7 km from Bhonda, by the government to study the impact of stone-crushers in the area. Its report stated that most of the stone-crushers were operating within a 500-metre distance from habitations, much closer than the minimum 1,500-metre distance stipulated for mining operations.

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Eleven years later, protests are still ongoing against “illegal” stone mining and “rising diseases” in Ghatari, and a current one started on July 27.

Jaswant Singh, 35, a resident of Ghatari, argues that if nothing is wrong, why were so many villagers suffering from silicosis. “Our produce from the farms is filled with dust, as are our homes.”

Ghatari villagers say they have written multiple times to the District Collector and SDM, but have been offered no solution.

Sitting under a shed, women at Bhonda say they regret Bhadana’s death and are praying for the family, but hope that their men are “spared”.

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Raggu Gurjar, 82, says they are a community of Gurjars, who are traditionally shepherds. “The activities of Bhadana and his men directly impacted our livelihood.”

Others around her say their protests and representations to the district collector and police had gone unheard.

“Bhadana called himself ‘Haryana ka Gunda (Haryana’s goon, as he originally was from the state)’ and dared us to do what we could. On October 11, his men came to the site where we were protesting and beat up the villagers. He also fired at our men, sending them scattering. He then shouted, ‘Today, only one of us will live’. That was when our men attacked him with sticks,” claims Mathri Devi.