We were sleeping under a shed at our farmland 21 of us, including five children. I felt someone was trying to wake me up but as I opened and rubbed my eyes, I saw around 25-30 gun-toting Musahars surrounding us. They pointed their guns at us and ordered us to part with our belongings. We told them we had nothing valuable to oblige them.

Amid all these talks, four villagers did a disappearing act, taking advantage of the darkness. This made the Musahars furious. One of them ordered others to tie our hands backwards. They had come prepared with ropes and as they tied our hands, the children started crying.

The killers did not waste time and started shooting us. One after another slumped on the ground. The bullet they fired at me crossed through the space between my hands and the back. But I, too, fell on the ground, out of sheer fear of confronting death from so close.

After they were through with all of us, the killers moved around, kicking us and muttering: “Mar gaya.” I lay idle and stopped breathing, trying my best to stop my body from shaking. Thank God, the man, who kicked me into my abdomen, too said: “Mar gaya.”

My 12-year-old nephew Diwana had also survived. He gained consciousness only minutes after the Musahars left, moaned and asked for water. I had by then stood up, but decided not to give him water because I had heard from someone that drinking water may prove fatal for a person with bullet injuries. I told him to wait.

Somehow I untied my hands and ran towards Icharwa. I crossed the two streams, between Icharwa and Amousi, on a boat silently. By the time I came back to Amousi along with the villagers, my nephew was no more.

(As told to Sanjeev Kumar Verma)