India, July 24 -- In December 2018, young industrialist Gunjan Khemka fell to a single headshot outside his factory in Hajipur. In January 2021, Indigo's Patna station manager Rupesh Kumar Singh was riddled with six bullets at his apartment gate. By mid-2025, it had become all too common: A JD(U) district secretary in Khagaria, two businessmen in Chhapra, a BJP general secretary in Patna, and finally, Gopal Khemka (Gunjan's father) shot as he stepped out of his SUV, 50 metres from a police outpost. Each killing was quicker than the last and carried the same message: We can kill whoever we want, whenever we choose, and the law will arrive just in time to photograph the corpse.

A pattern emerges across these six high-profile murders: textb...