RANCHI, June 5 -- Rajkumar Yadav, long-time assistant and personal driver to BJP MLA and former Jharkhand state minister Neera Yadav, was brutally beaten to death in Chitarpur village in Koderma on Wednesday night following a land dispute with extended family members, people aware of the development said on Thursday. Three family members sustained critical injuries in the incident.

The fatal ambush occurred late Wednesday night, just hours after local law enforcement allegedly dismissed the lawmaker's explicit, urgent distress calls regarding an imminent threat over an ongoing land dispute.

According to statements released by MLA Yadav, the tragedy was entirely preventable. The statement suggested that earlier that evening, the suspects...