Karimnagar: Strongly condemning the atrocities on Dalits and Backward Classes people by the Sircilla police, former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar said, “Telangana state was granted by UPA not for this.” She demanded a judicial probe as well as cases under SC/ST Atrocities Act against the policemen involved. She asked how the Centre could be silent when the incident of atrocities on Dalits and BCs happened on July 2. She said the party would raise the issue in Parliament. She was addressing three meetings in Sircilla on Monday. “We had seen several dreams about Telangana. We expected Telangana to be a state where there would be no atrocities on Dalits, Adivasis, BCs, minorities or other sections. But I was in extreme pain when I was told about the Nerella incident. I could not control my tears,” Ms Meira Kumar said.
Accompanied by Congress leaders including PCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Ms Kumar met four of the eight victims of alleged police torture. She claimed the victims were beaten and given electric shocks for five days due to which they had suffered internal injuries like damage to kidneys and ribs. “Is this India? Are we living in 2017,” she asked. She said that one of the victims was a commerce graduate who had not been given the promised job by the TRS government. She said another victim could not complete his graduation due to non-payment of his scholarship. “This is not the Telangana for which we struggled so much,” she said.
Ms Kumar said the sand mafia had establish complete dominance in the region. “Have we formed a separate state for the sand mafia? They are overloading their trucks and speeding. They don't care about people getting killed or injured in accidents. One sarpanch told me that five people were killed in accidents in his village. But no case was filed, no compensation was paid and no contract was cancelled,” she said. Stating the cases filed against SCs and BCs were false, she said two lorries were set ablaze during the night on July 2 by some unidentified persons. Police visited the village of SCs and BCs and picked up people at random.
“Telangana is known for its culture. But the shameful act by the police and administration has brought disrepute to Telangana’s culture,” Ms Kumar said. Demanding that the activities of sand mafia be stopped immediately, she wanted withdrawal of cases booked against the villagers. Congress leaders including Koppula Raju, K. Jana Reddy, Shabbir Ali, Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, T. Jeevan Reddy, Dr. J. Geetha Reddy, V. Hanumantha Rao, Ponnam Prabhakar, Sridhar Babu and others accompanied Ms Kumar.
TRS bristles, says it was a flop show:
Taking strong objection to the comments made by former Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar against the government and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, TRS leaders on Monday said the Congress “flop show” in Karimnagar and Sircilla districts was intended to gain some sympathy from dalits whom the party has been using for vote bank politics. TRS leaders including Peddapalli MP Balka Suman, MLA Aroori Ramesh, MLCs Karne Prabhakar and T. Bhanu Prasad said the Jillela incident was a small one which was being blown out of proportion by Congress leaders.
They said the Cong-ress was silent on several incidents against Dalits during the ten-ure of its governments, and was shedding crocodile tears. They alleged that the Congress leaders were taking up agitations on alleged atrocities on Dalits and BCs which were not true. They said it was an “age-old practice” of the Cong-ress to divide people on caste and religions. They said the Con-gress had forgotten what the TRS had been doing for the uplift of Dalits, STs and BCs.
Mr Bhanu Prasad took to Congress leaders calling Mr Rao “Pedda Dora” and minister K.T. Rama Rao as “Chinna Dora”. “The people voted for the TRS and defeated the Congress leaders as they knew them to be ‘thieves of Telan-gana’,” he said.
