A sessions court on Tuesday (February 17, 2026) acquitted all 17 men arrested for murdering an elderly man and his son during communal violence in Chhattisgarh’s Bemetara district in 2023.
The bodies of Raheem Ummad Mohammad, 55, and his son Idul Mohammad, 35 — cattle grazers from Biranpur village in Bemetara — were found in Korvayi on April 11, 2023, at a time when communal violence had broken out in the village.
Earlier on April 8, a scuffle between two minors had escalated into communal violence between the majority and minority communities in the village. As rumours of Hindus getting beaten up by Muslims in the Muslim pocket of the village spread, mobs were mobilised from both the communities and a clash took place. Bhuneshwar Sahu, 22, was murdered by a mob from the minority community.
Sahu’s murder triggered a political outcry. On April 10, a bandh was announced by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that was unofficially backed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was then in the Opposition, and its leaders blamed the then Congress government for the murder.
Rahim and his son were murdered despite heavy police presence in the village. It later emerged that a day before their bodies were found with visible injury marks, a house near Biranpur which belonged to Rahim’s married daughter had been burnt by a mob.
Back then, a total of six First Information Reports, including the double murder case, were registered in which 17 men were arrested. In the election held later that year, Bhuneshwar Sahu’s father Ishwar was given a ticket by the BJP and he defeated Congress veteran Ravindra Choubey to become an MLA from the Saja constituency. The Congress lost the elections and after assuming power, the BJP government in the State handed over the Sahu murder case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
Published – February 18, 2026 12:49 am IST
