Chief minister Hemant Soren on Wednesday expressed shock over the massacre of seven tribals at Burugulikera village in West Singhbhum district, and said nobody will be allowed to take the law in their hand.

Hemant, who returned to Ranchi from Delhi on Wednesday afternoon, told reporters at Birsa Munda Airport that he would hold a high-level meeting with officials over the incident.

“This matter has come to my knowledge and I am set to hold a meeting. Nobody will be allowed to take the law in their hand. I am gathering details of the incident,” the CM said.

Some reporters asked him if PLFI rebels were suspected to be involved in the killing.

“There are so many stories in the air that have come to my knowledge. It is also said that there was some dispute among villagers,” the CM replied.

Later, however, West Singhbhum superintendent of police Inderjeet Mahatha ruled out the involvement of any rebel group.

Hemant ducked questions on whether the murders were linked to the pathalgadi movement.

In the evening the chief minister held meetings with senior police and state government officials. He directed the police to form a special investigation team (SIT) to be headed by a deputy superintendent of police-rank official.

“As per the direction of the CM an SIT will be constituted,” said additional director-general of police (operations) M.L. Meena.

“The CM has directed to investigate the reasons behind the crime and the people involved. The bodies have been recovered and sent for post-mortem. Some people have been identified who were suspected to be involved in the crime and some of them have been detained for questioning.

“More or less it looks a dispute among villagers,” he said.

He said that it was not clear whether pathalgadi was the reason for the dispute.

Rameshwar Oraon, state minister and former IPS officer, said the motive of the murders was being investigated.

The Opposition pounced on the massacre to attack the new state government, and pointed fingers at the pathalgadi movement.

“The murder of seven innocent tribals has left me pained,” said former chief minister and senior BJP leader Raghubar Das.

“Chief minister Hemant Soren should explain to people the reason behind withdrawing cases against people who on the name of pathalgadi are doing anti-national activities and dividing the society. This decision of the government emboldened such people and they were given to believe that they have immunity from everything.

“During my regime the government had taken measures to control secessionist forces who were misleading innocent tribals in the name of a sacred ritual. Now the era of anarchy has been unleashed upon people. The government is trying to hide the facts of this case,” he added.

New BJP national president JP Nadda on Wednesday expressed shock over the murders and formed a seven-man probe committee. The team consists of Jaswantsinh Bhabhor, Samir Oraon, Bharti Pawar, Gomati Sai and John Barla (MP) and former state cabinet minister Neelkanth Singh Munda.

Pathalgadi is a traditional tribal ritual of erecting stone slabs that was tweaked by many villages — mainly in Khunti district but also in some pockets of Kolhan division on a smaller scale — in 2017-18 to assert their special rights granted under the Constitution.

However, police had alleged that leaders of the movement had asked villagers to burn Aadhaar, voter and ration cards. The cops had also alleged that villages that were part of the pathalgadi had set up banks, claimed they would introduce their own currency notes, asked villagers to boycott government-run schemes and not to send their children to government schools.

In August 2017 in Khunti the then sub-divisional police officer Ranbir Kumar Singh along with a dozen cops were held hostage for over 12 hours allegedly by Vijay Kujur, the alleged mastermind of the pathalgadi movement, and his supporters.

In July 2018 at Anigara in Khunti, a mob abducted three cops from the home of the then Khunti MP Karia Munda.

In June 2018, six women activists of an NGO were abducted from RC Mission School in Kochang village under Murhu block and gang-raped by a PLFI rebel Baji Samad, Ayub Shandi Purti and Junas Munda. All of them were convicted in court.

Within Khunti district police had lodged as many as 23 cases out of which 19 cases were booked under Section 124A (sedition) besides other sections of IPC.

Charge sheets were submitted in 22 cases and the court passed verdict in at least one case. A total of 172 named accused were booked by the police and the law department had granted permission to police to slap Section 124A of the IPC against them.

Around 10,000 unknown persons were booked as accused in these cases under 124A (sedition) of IPC.

On December 29 last year, when Hemant took oath as chief minister, he held a cabinet meeting on the same day.

The cabinet decided to withdraw all criminal cases lodged by the police against people involved in the pathalgadi movement.

“We are waiting for the report and if the pathalgadi movement is the reason behind the murders then this is the time to be alert,” a senior police officer told The Telegraph on condition of anonymity. “This is an indication that a fresh bout of such activities will start and you can’t rule out the fallout of such incidents. We need to introspect over why such incidents happened.”