Minister's guest of honour: Man who attacked village boy

Patna: He was expelled from his party after he was caught on camera mercilessly beating up a young man in a Bihar village. A month later, Shambhu Yadav has shared the stage with a minister in the Bihar government.  Memories are short in politics.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had intervened when Yadav's video had surfaced, ordering the police to arrest his partyman. Yadav was released from jail just a few days after his arrest.

Today, he sat alongside minister Brishen Patel at an official function in Hajipur. The Chief Minister's office has not reacted yet to the public display of solidarity.

When the media unearthed Yadav's video, shot by a villager on his mobile phone, Yadav, a local leader with considerable clout  in Hajipur, said that the young man had been accused of rape by villagers. Yadav's baffling defense: that if he beat up the boy, the villagers may let the matter end there. The boy's family insisted he was being punished for trying to expose corruption in a local government scheme.