ANANTAPUR: Gooty town in the district is all set to commemorate Gulapalyam Hampanna, a railway gatekeeper who sacrificed his life to save two women from a group of British soldiers while they were being sexually molested. Hampanna’s 128th death anniversary falls on Monday.
The Gooty Kota Parirakshana Samithi and Hampanna Park Development Committee are jointly organising the death anniversary programme.
Gulapalyam Hampanna hailed from the eponymous village in the Gooty area in the district was born in a very poor shepherd family. He earned his livelihood by doing odd jobs, but he got an opportunity to serve the railways as a gatekeeper. Though he was illiterate, he stood for values with a service motto in the village.
On 3rd October 1893, a British Army battalion was moving from Bellary to Secunderabad and halted at the Guntakal railway station. In the evening, a group of soldiers of the battalion who were in an inebriated condition went to nearby agriculture fields.
Two women agricultural labourers were working in the field. The drunken soldiers spotted the women and started to molest them in the fields. The women shouted for help. Hampanna heard the voice and ran to the scene.
The soldiers warned Hampanna to go away from the spot and threatened him with dire consequences. Though he knew that soldiers were armed, Hampanna resisted the soldiers. During the tussle, the soldiers shot dead Hampanna.
Hearing the noise of gunshots, the railway police rushed to the spot and noticed Hampanna was in a pool of blood in an unconscious state. They rushed Hampanna to a nearby hospital. He breathed his last on October 4, 1893, at the hospital.
Hampanna’s mortal remains were buried near Munro Choultry in Gooty. A monument was erected in memory of Gulapalyam Hampanna at Satram Mitta in Gooty town close to the Hyderabad-Bengaluru National Highway 44.
While several encroachers grabbed lands adjacent to the monument, Hampanna Park Development Committee took initiative to clear the encroachments in 2009. The committee under the leadership of M. Virupakshi Reddy, Dr M. Suresh Babu, B. Ismail and several others from Gooty are putting efforts to safeguard the culture and heritage of Gooty.
