Former Janpad Panchayat vice president Bharat Singh and his brother died trapped in a burning Toyota Fortuner after a village dispute turned lethal.
KORIYA, June 17 — Rivals burned a former BJP leader and his brother to death inside a Toyota Fortuner on Tuesday night.
The brutal killings happened during a turf war over a local sand mining operation in Naugai village. Three people died in total. Bharat Singh, who previously served as the Janpad Panchayat vice president, died trapped inside his own vehicle. Flames consumed the SUV entirely before anyone intervened.
They left nothing but a scorched metal frame on the dirt road.
Tensions now grip the entire Koriya district. The violent escalation stemmed from a long-standing dispute between two local factions: the Tripathi family and the Thakur family. And it ended in absolute carnage.
Members of the Thakur family drove into Naugai village under the cover of darkness. They didn’t come to talk. The Tripathi family resides in Naugai, and they met the encroaching Thakur group head-on. An initial verbal altercation quickly shattered the nighttime quiet, spiralling into a vicious physical brawl.
What transforms a rural business rivalry into a triple homicide?
The answer lies in the lucrative sand mining trade. This wasn’t a sudden misunderstanding. Suresha Chaubey, the Additional Superintendent of Police for Koriya, confirmed the two families had warred over sand mining operations for an extended period. The bad blood simply hit a lethal boiling point on Tuesday night.
Singh sat inside his Toyota Fortuner with his brother when the chaos erupted. Investigators haven’t yet determined exactly how the fire started. But the result remains undeniable. The inferno trapped both men inside, burning them alive alongside a third victim who died during the broader clash.
Police and forensic teams swarmed the crime scene by morning. They sifted through the ashes of the Fortuner, searching for anything the fire didn’t destroy. The Sonhat police station took immediate jurisdiction over the smouldering wreckage.
Officers didn’t waste time making arrests. Chaubey stated that investigators quickly identified seven primary suspects involved in the midnight slaughter. Police strike teams moved through the district and captured four of them before Wednesday afternoon. Three men remain on the run.
So, the manhunt continues across the region.
Deepak Jha, the Inspector General of the Sarguja Range, took direct oversight of the investigation. He ordered his teams to dig past the immediate violence and map out the exact root cause of the conflict. He wants the precise mechanics of the sand mining dispute that triggered the bloodshed.
Authorities hit the suspects with severe charges. They filed counts under Section 302 for murder and Section 307 for attempt to murder, alongside strict arson charges. The attempt to murder charge signals that other individuals barely survived the chaotic melee before the vehicle went up in flames.
Police have locked down the immediate zones in Koriya. They won’t risk retaliatory violence. The sheer brutality of burning two men alive guarantees that surviving faction members harbour intense anger.
Officers remain on the ground to enforce the peace.
