What lay hidden in Chhattisgarh’s Purana Kharve

In June 2026, Purana Kharve woke up to discover that 8 murders had been committed over the past 4 months, after two decades of no heinous crime in the village. It shocked the 130-140 families that live here, by the banks of the Mahanadi river, in Chhattisgarh’s Balodabazar-Bhatapara district.

The Kasdol police found that 46-year-old Ram Sahay Jaiswal, a shopkeeper, had allegedly poisoned 8 men. He had served all his victims alcohol laced with poison. Ram Sahay, now arrested and in judicial custody, says he had planned to kill a few more, found investigators. 

“For most in the village, he was a frail, meek figure. That helped him avoid suspicion for long. He was a friendly drinking partner for his victims and a socially active family man to boot,” says Kasdol’s sub-divisional police officer Kaushal Kishore Wasnik of the 5-foot-2-inch tall Ram Sahay, who weighs around 50 kg. Wasnik says that masked behind that disposition were “deep insecurities, an inferiority complex, a cynical and suspicious nature,” added to which were life’s circumstances: mounting debt, a failing business, caste dynamics, and insults he endured daily. All this had fuelled revenge against the victims.  

A shocked village

At Budhru Chowk, Ram Sahay’s house is locked and so is the tiny shop in the same compound. The family has moved to Kasdol, a town nearly 7 kilometres from the house, after Ram Sahay’s arrest on June 22. Next to it under a peepal tree, a small group of people stand that includes family members of a couple of victims. They are discussing the infamy Purana Kharve has acquired of late. 

Among them is Bagh Ram Sahu, who recalls the events of February 20 when his father Buthalu Ram Sahu — chronologically the second of Ram Sahay’s 8 victims — had collapsed in front of the shop. By the time Buthalu Ram was taken to a hospital in Kasdol, he was pronounced dead. “The doctors at the hospital were not suspicious, nor did I have any reason to suspect Ram Sahay. My father had spent many evenings drinking with him. That day Ram Sahay even offered to pay for the rented car in which he was transported,” says Bagh Ram.

He dismissed the motive the police gave: that Buthalu Ram had abused Ram Sahay and his caste during a 2023 Assembly polls campaigning event. The police said that one episode had left Ram Sahay nursing a grudge against many members of the Sahu community, a dominant caste group in the village. 

“That’s fabricated,” Bagh Ram says. “He is using it to justify his crime. I had never heard of any fight. No one else in the village remembers any heated argument between Ram Sahay and my father or the others he killed. And even if he felt bad, was that a good enough reason to kill someone?” he says.

But that 2023 argument had a deep psychological impact on Ram Sahay, the police say. The fatal poisoning of Mahetaru Ram Sahu on May 14, the last of the killings, was also purportedly linked to the same episode. Mahetaru’s son Divyanshu is surprised that a man who was regular at Ram Sahay’s shop could be killed in a cold-blooded manner. He shares a phone call recording in which Ram Sahay can be heard inquiring about the possibility of a post mortem of Mahetaru and dissuading the family from seeking investigation into the death. “He said that it would bring him badnaami (disrepute) to him, because my father was last seen at his shop,” says Divyanshu, 19.   

The 2023 episode was also linked to the one death that Ram Sahay — otherwise “unapologetic, even boastful” about the eight killings as per the police — regretted. It was the death of Vinod Sahu who died on March 31, said Wasnik. “During interrogation, Ram Sahay broke into tears and said that he was fond of Vinod, who called him Kaka. His anger was directed towards other members of Vinod’s community,” Wasnik says. Vinod was a part of the group from the Sahu community that was campaigning during the 2024 elections.

As population numbers stand in the village, the Sahus are in a majority followed by tribals, Satnamis (a Scheduled Caste group), and then Kalars, a community from which Ram Sahay comes from. He believed that due to low numbers, his community was at a disadvantage and he could not retort the way he would have liked. However, the fourth murder was of Budhram Jaiswal — a man from Ram Sahay’s own community — over an alleged property dispute.   

Grudges and personal motives

The first murder, of Badri Prasad Patel, on February 6, was allegedly over a long-standing grudge over regular bullying and abuse. “It is alleged that Badri Prasad used to hurl abuses at Ram Sahay. He had conveyed to Badri quite a few times that his behaviour hurt him. But each time Badru would dismiss his concerns and mock him more,” Wasnik says, adding that this had a deep impact on Ram Sahay but he couldn’t take a physically stronger Badri on. “So he decided to kill him. On February 6, he served him half a quarter bottle of whiskey, with poison mixed in it,” says Wasnik.

The next two killings, Chhattu Ram Sahu on March 31 and Gajanand Manjhi on April 28, were both allegedly over Ram Sahay’s suspicion. He suspected that Chattu Ram had ill-intentions towards his wife, as per assistant sub-inspector Sanjeev Rajput. Chhattu Ram’s son Harish Sahu, 29, says, “The truth is my father had no contact with his wife. She stays indoors anyway,” he asserts. 

Sadhin Bai, Manjhi’s widow, is puzzled. She says she had never heard of Ram Sahay. “On that day, my husband was sleeping when my friend Mohan Jaiswal (alias Jhadu Jaiswal) arrived with the liquor that my husband consumed after mixing it with some soft drinks. He collapsed at once, and at the hospital he was declared dead,” she says.

Mohan says that Ram Sahay had handed over the liquor bottle to him with specific instructions to serve it to Gajanand. “He knew I don’t drink, but told me to serve the drink to Gajanand that very day,” he says.  

Sadhin contests Ram Sahay’s purported claim of her husband performing black magic to keep the accused in debt, but acknowledges that he had practised occult rituals. 

Wasnik says debt was piling up and in all, Ram Sahay owed ₹10 lakh to people in the village. “At one point of time, his shop used to do brisk business but in the past three to four years, more shops had opened up in the area taking away some of the business. He had opened another bigger shop for his married son in the nearby town of Kasdol a couple of years ago. All that required capital, for which he borrowed money. Lenders, including one of the victims, Chaitu Ram, reminded him about interest payments,” says the SDPO. 

The police suspect that after the initial killings over revenge, Ram Sahay saw eliminating his lenders as a way to rid himself of the debt. Chaitu was killed on April 29, the seventh of the eight deaths. His wife Tam Bai was aware of the transaction involving ₹50,000 that her husband had lent and that ₹20,000 was overdue. “Recently we needed money because we are looking for a match for one of my sons. I know my husband asked for the remainder to be returned, but there was no way he could have threatened or pressurised Ram Sahay,” she asserts. 

The spate of killings began by poisoning a street dog a few days before he got his first human victim, say the police. “When he killed the dog, feeding it soan papdi and some savouries, a few among the future victims were present outside the shop. None of them knew they would meet the same end,” Wasnik says. 

Ram Sahay allegedly sourced the poison from two youths in the village on the pretext of using it for rats in his shops. “Both the youths were linked to hunters who would use the poison to kill cranes on the riverbanks. He told the youths that he needed the chemical because the regular rat poison was ineffective against the rodents. They saw no reason to suspect him,” says a police officer. 

A family that didn’t see it coming

Omeshwar Jaiswal, one of his nephews, the son of his elder brother Ramcharan Jaiswal, asserts that his uncle had no enmity with anyone. “He used to indulge in religious activities, was regular with prayers, used to play bhajans in the morning,” he says, wary of the backlash coming because of the association with his uncle.

Others also say that he was deeply religious. Ram Sahay had constructed a Hanuman temple in the village a few years ago, and had been associated with the Gayatri Pariwar in the past. According to Wasnik, he did all that assuming that he would get some recognition from his fellow villagers but that never came. “This had left him upset and fuelled his revenge further,” he says. 

Omeshwar acknowledges that his uncle used to drink a lot. Police investigations revealed that Ram Sahay had been an occasional drinker in the past, but since COVID, he has become a daily affair. Later, during his custodial interrogation, he would purportedly joke that he had “reformed his village as nobody would dare to drink again”. 

According to the accounts of most villagers such as Ratharam Yadav, Jaiswal visited the hospitals and attended the last rites of his victims. This was to check if any post-mortem had been carried out, say the police.

Death behind bars in Chhattisgarh 

Smelling a problem

By the time the last death was reported, people had started linking the deaths to him. This was mainly due to the testimony of 23-year-old Kartik Kumar, the only survivor. 

He recalls that a friend, Pramod, had given him a quarter bottle of whiskey on April 14. “As soon as I consumed it, I felt uneasy and fell unconscious. I was taken to a hospital where I vomited and gradually started feeling better,” he says, initially not suspecting anything. “Later, as more deaths happened, I asked Pramod where he’d got the bottles from.” Ram Sahay’s name came up.

Pramod adds that the liquor was meant for him and has reasons to believe that Ram Sahay would have targeted him. “There was a property he wanted to buy from me, but I sold it to someone else offering a higher price. This had left him upset,” he says. 

What first scratched the surface of this complex mystery was a chance meeting between deceased Vinod Sahu’s father Bharat Sahu and Wasnik in a local haat (market) towards the end of May. Bharat, who is currently posted as a sub-inspector in Ambikapur had served under Wasnik in Durg earlier. 

“He told me that there were 8 deaths in the village including that of his older brother Chhattu Ram and son Vinod. There was no post-mortem in any case. I asked him about the gap in the number of days between the deaths, which hinted at the deaths being more than a coincidence. I asked them to file a complaint,” Wasnik says.

According to the police, the villagers too had noticed a pattern but saw the deaths more as a curse that had fallen upon them rather than a series of planned murders. 

The villagers, in their June 6 complaint, had alleged that he was planning to murder 21 of them for some superstitious occult ritual. The police deny that as a motive behind any murder as well as the figure of 21. They however say that there were a few more that he was aiming to target next. 

On June 8, Ram Sahay was called to the Kasdol police station for the first time. He denied any role and said that people wanted to frame him because they were jealous of him. 

“By then there had been over 20 days since the last death and people had expressed the possibility of him mixing poison in the alcohol. We initiated an inquest into all the deaths. I did some research on toxicology which suggested similar case studies of poisoning,” Wasnik says. The bodies were exhumed, and with the court’s permission, samples from 7 exhumed bodies (one of victims was cremated) were sent to Raipur for testing. 

On June 21, Ram Sahay was brought to the Kasdol police station campus that also houses the sub-divisional office. Soon, he confessed, says Wasnik, though he began mixing up victims. A coherent narrative emerged on the night of June 22 where he explained in detail how he planned and executed the murders and the story behind each of the alleged crime.

Balodabazar-Bhatapara Superintendent of Police recalls how after the arrest Jaiswal was remorseless, even gleefully proclaiming, “Main nipta diye hon sab la,” (I have finished them all in Chhattisgarh). 

Due to its complex nature, the murders have become a case study in circumstantial evidence gathering and criminal psychology for a newly inducted batch of sub-inspectors who have come to Kasdol for training on June 24. Under a setting sun, Wasnik and senior sub-inspector Rajput take them to the site along the Mahanadi riverbank where the victims were buried after the murders. 

Addressing the new recruits in crisp uniforms, Wasnik brings up Locard’s Exchange Principle in forensic science, which says that every contact leaves a trace, and there will always be an exchange when two items meet. Beyond the evidence though, Wasnik says a body tells him: ‘Ensure that I get justice’, he says, as the walks back to Purana Kharve after sunset.

shubhomoy.s@thehindu.co.in