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
