Tamilnadu Alternative Journalist & Writers Forum's Press release against Writer Ravikumar on his FB comment

Duddu Prabhakar: Alleges Yella Narashima Reddy's flawed Judgement Tsundur #

Duddu Prabhakar narrates the story of Tsundur dalit massacre. 8 dalits were massacres. Dead bodies were found after four days, in a gunny back. Mandru Ramesh's brother Parshodrao died of heart attack seeing the dead body and this was nineth death. Anil Babu a main witness to the Reddy's massacre was shot dead by the police during the hunger strike.  The 11th death, a vehicle ran over a women protester in Delhi. Dr. Ravi who postmortem the body, spoke that do people kill this horribly and he hanged himself.  Dr. Ravi died after weeping for two days over the killing dalits. Actually the gunny back which was found after four days had number of maggot. The body in the gunny back were chopped into pieces and once the back was open the maggot started spreading across the postmortem room.

Police prepared charge sheet after a big movement, 219 members were charge sheeted. 20 members died during the trial, and dalits have been pointing out 7 main accused in the massacre. Till now there is no charge sheet on them or even arrested. The court showed some lame excuse, example the calling name and the real name in the governmental record are different, showing this the police removed the main accused from the charge sheet.

On 2004 December 1 the court hearing started on 189 accused. 89 witnesses were questioned and all dalits gave witness and clearly pointed out each person in the court and told the role played by them in massacring dalits. On 116 members there are witnesses, and all of us thought every one will be punished. On the contrary the court sentenced on 89 members life sentence and on 35 members one year imprisonment.

Hence Dalits appealed in High Court, while Government and the accused also appealed.  Dalits appealed as the special court was set up under POA act, the court proceedings were under POA act, but the Judgment was not given under this particular act. And also dalits appealed to strengthened the sentences to the 35 members.  Sixty nine were released stating there were no witnesses, dalits argued we have witnesses for sixty nine members also.IPC 149 [3 02. Punishment for murder.—Whoever commits murder shall be punished with death, or 1[imprisonment for life], and shall also be liable to fine.] Totally 8 appeals were filed in AP High Court.

The appeal was taken on Feburary 13th 2014. There was no argument in the case, it was only litigation. The accused side version was said in 4 days, the prosecution told their views in another four days.  Only 8 days the Judgment is delivered. We thought the released would also get sentence but High Court 4th Bench Yella Narashima Reddy bench along with Jaiswal.  The entire case was dealt by Yella Narashima Reddy.

When the case came to Yella Narashima Reddy, Special Public Prosecutor  Bojja Tharakam [recently was under medication for brain tumor] The day the hearing started Tharakam said as he is still recovering from illness, he needs a week to study the case. The Judge said no and further stated that for how many years the accused should be behind bars. He said there is no time for you, tomorrow the court will start its proceedings.

The Public prosecutor said listen to all appeal and then give judgment as all appeals are related to the same case. The Judge said we will only listen to accused peoples appeal and give judgment then whatever you want to do. Again the Judge said How many innocents are there as accused [in Tsundur dalit massacre] should all these spend their life in Jail or even rust in Jail. The witness, activists all got a sense that the Judge will not be fair with the case, and the witness said they don’t have faith on the bench and we feel you would give judgment in favor of reddys. The pleaders asked to transfer the case to another bench.  

Yella Narashima Reddy got angry immediately and said you doubt the judiciary. At this moment it is important to know some more facts in relation to Tsundur.

In Tsundur Trail court there were five Judges. The first person Balayogi, Bhasavaiya, Prabhakar, Satyanarayana, and Hanis,  Balayogi [Mala dalit]was the first person appointed, and went to see the court. The accused claimed if he is the Judge we wont get fair judgment and through political parties transferred him from the court. Even not for a day Balayogi heard the case.  Bhasavaiya from Kamma community came as Judge to the special court and heard around 82 witnesses and left. Next D. Prabhakar Rao was appointed as Judge, the accused party approached the AP High Court stating Prabhakar Rao is a Mala and he would give Judgment in favor of Malas' hence transfer him for the Special Court.

The High Court called Prabhakar Rao and asked, Prabhakar said I Myself humiliated, if I am a mala cant I give judgment in a court. Cant I hear Reddies case? You do whatever you want to do sir told the High Court and the trial was going on in the Special Court. The accused party whatever gave in High Court gave the same document stating him not to hear the case. And the accused party asked him to leave the court. The letter was signed by 189 accused and produced through their lawyer.

Therefore two times a dalit judge was removed from hearing the Reddies atrocities. Then no judge in the AP High Court said this is contempt of court or didn’t anyone see this has a humiliation to a dalit judge. None spoke anything.

But in present case the innocent dalits are not saying the you are Reddy therefore you might give a judgment in favor of them. They said you are not hearing all the appeals rather focusing one appeal will not give justice to us. For this Dalits received 'contempt of court'. The appeal was made by the witness who lost two of his family members in front of his eyes, and he felt he would get justice in lower court, then he felt higher court. Yella Narashima Reddy wrote a contempt of court as though removing the public prosecutor from the profession.

Later Yella Narashima Reddy wrote four page judgment in a hurry and gave a judgment and released all of them immediately. In the history of AP High Court if a affected party says they don’t have confidence in the bench, they were usually changed to another bench.

The judgment is so vague, that the Judge has added four names, when it was only three people committed the crime. He [yella Narashima Reddy] wrote Jagadhi Jallaiya, D1, D2, and D3. D1: Jalathi Immanuel, D2: Jalathi Mathaiya, D3: Malli Subbharao,  But he wrote four names…..

Speaker: Duddu Prabhakar, Kula Nirumulana Porata Samithi

He has been associted with the case since the beginning, and he was there in the entire case in the lower court, assisting the witness etc. At present leading the Lakshmipeta massacre case.

He can be reached at: kulanirmulana@gmail.com