Ground Report | He Won’t Talk, But Osama’s Name Says Enough: The Shahabuddin Legacy Roars In Siwan

Last Updated:October 17, 2025, 13:05 IST

To understand Osama’s entry into Bihar politics, one must remember the man whose shadow looms over it all - Mohammad Shahabuddin, once called the Sultan of Siwan.

Standing at his residence, locally known as 'Sahab Ghar' of Siwan, Osama, son of the late RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin, turns away from the cameras, refusing to speak. (Image: PTI, News18)

“Chhoriye na madam, mujhe media se baat nahi karni (Forget it madam, I don’t want to talk to the media)," RJD’s Raghunathpur candidate Osama Sahab’s curt response to News18 when asked about his vision for Siwan and the constituency he expects to represent. His words were calm and soft, but the tone was firm. Standing at his residence, locally known as ‘Sahab Ghar’ of Siwan, Osama, son of the late RJD strongman Mohammad Shahabuddin, turns away from the cameras, refusing to speak.

For someone whose name means – lion – in Arabic, this silence speaks volumes. The crowd and the ring of his supporters around him, however, cheered him and spoke plenty.

A couple of hours before he arrived at his residence in a cavalcade of black SUVs, hundreds of young RJD workers had already gathered outside the SDO court where he filed his nomination, waving flags, chanting slogans, and hailing the return of the ‘Sahab’s legacy.’

Osama, in crisp black pathani kurta-pajama, walked into the administrative office with RJD veteran and Raghunathpur’s sitting MLA Harishankar Yadav, who signed as his proposer that looked like a clear signal that the party, and Lalu Prasad Yadav himself, had chosen to revive the Siwan chapter of RJD’s old bastion.

In Siwan, the past is back on the ballot

Outside the room in the SDO court in Siwan, where Osama was going through the administrative formalities, his advocate Dhanesh Kumar Singh spoke exclusively to News18, addressing the elephant in the room with his side of the legal version. “Two of the four criminal cases against Osama Sahab have already been disposed of. He is currently out on bail in the remaining two," he said responding to the questions around the controversy, triggered after RJD announced his candidacy as BJP pointed out his family’s dark past of crime, control and intimidation. Osama’s election affidavit, however stated, that he had five pending criminal cases.

At this point, what Singh’s statement omitted, and what the charged crowd around him seemed to amplify was the deeper story of crime, legacy, and a carefully engineered return. For many in Siwan, it was nothing short of a déjà vu – a flashback to a darker chapter in Bihar’s political history. And, that legacy is impossible to ignore.

Mohammad Shahabuddin, once the undisputed strongman of Siwan and four-time MP, carried nearly two dozen serious criminal cases, including multiple murders, attempted murder, and abduction. His iron grip over the region was both feared and revered, and his rise from gangster to parliamentarian remains one of Bihar’s most controversial political arcs.

When he died in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in 2021 due to COVID-19 complications, his son Osama, then studying law in London, returned to India. But instead of retreating from the shadow of crime, he stepped into it. In the past three years alone, five criminal cases have been filed against Osama, including charges under the Arms Act, alleged land grabbing, and firing incidents. His entry into electoral politics has come with suites of legal proceedings still hanging in balance, reflecting the same blurred line between power and prosecution that once defined his father.

Amidst all this, stood Ujjwal Giri, Osama’s childhood friend and former travel companion to Vaishno Devi, a trip that now feels almost symbolic of the duality in Osama’s life. “He’s always been social, easy to talk to. Not like what people imagine when they hear the name Shahabuddin," Ujjwal told News18, watching the spectacle with quiet reflection.

But in Siwan, the name Shahabuddin is never just a name, it is a brand, a warning, and for many, a vote. As Osama courts public adulation and legal ambiguity in equal measure, his candidacy becomes not just about one man, but about a constituency deciding whether the past is a burden, or a banner to rally behind.

Clearly, in Siwan, imagination and memory are hard to separate.

Cut to the narrow, noisy lanes of Siwan town, men crowding tea stalls, debating the meaning of Osama’s political debut. Some call it ‘Lalu’s emotional move,’ while others whisper ‘the return of fear.’ Later that evening, Osama drives back to his family bungalow, the imposing ‘Sahab’s Ghar’ located diagonally opposite a ‘Mahila Thana’. This was the place where his father once held his ‘darbars’ (self styledcourts). The name still echoes through the town like folklore. Ahsan Akram, a family friend of Sahabuddin family, who accompanied Osama to nominations filing centre told News 18, “Sahabuddin was called Dr Sahab as he attempted to get his PhD. He is known as Sahab as people admired him as the- protector of the poor. He used to be the judge and jury during his darbars. There was no one, absolutely no one, who had the guts to disobey his orders. And he never discriminated on the basis of religion or caste.

The Sultan of Siwan: A Legacy of Power, Fear, and Politics

To understand Osama’s entry, one must remember the man whose shadow looms over it all – Mohammad Shahabuddin, once called the Sultan of Siwan. A four-time MP and two-time MLA, Shahabuddin ruled this district like a personal kingdom during the Lalu-Rabri era.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, his writ ran deeper than the state-law’s. Police dared not act against him, bureaucrats feared his word more than government orders. He slapped a senior police officer in public, conducted khap-style courts from his home, and even the opposition feared to put up posters during his elections.

His rise was meteoric, from a PhD dropout in political science in 1986, to a bahubali with over two dozen criminal cases ranging from murder to extortion. Shahabuddin was labelled a ‘habitual criminal’ by Siwan’s own District Magistrate in 2005. A 2005 raid on his bungalow revealed AK-47s, grenades, night-vision gear, proof that the lines between mafia and politics had long blurred.

His crimes shocked even a crime-hardened Bihar, from the acid killings of two brothers, to the murders of CPI(ML) leader Chandrashekhar Prasad and journalist Rajdev Ranjan. Both were acts that turned the ‘Sultan’ into a symbol of terror, even as some locals whispered admiration, calling him ‘the protector of the poor.’

That duality and the complexity on the ground still define Siwan. For every villager who shudders at the memory of the ‘jungle raj’, there is another who insists Shahabuddin kept order when the state failed. When he died of COVID-19 in 2021, the same town that once trembled under his rule lit candles for him.

Now, Osama, a 30-year-old young and visibly brooding man, London-educated in law, has returned to claim that complicated inheritance. After a few months in jail last year over land disputes, he is now attempting a political resurrection of the Shahabuddin name, this time under Tejashwi Yadav’s leadership. Lalu Prasad Yadav, who once nurtured Shahabuddin as his enforcer, personally handed the RJD symbol to his son.

At Sahab’s Ghar, the gates that once guarded a parallel empire now open quietly. Osama, with a smile, greets supporters, shakes hands, but avoids questions. Behind the calm facade is a legacy that refuses to fade.

News elections Ground Report | He Won’t Talk, But Osama’s Name Says Enough: The Shahabuddin Legacy Roars In Siwan

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