The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Mudigonda limping back to normality

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Thursday, Aug 02, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Mudigonda limping back to normality

D. Chandra Bhaskar Rao

CPI(M) leader Bandi Ramesh and SI always at loggerheads

Bandi Ramesh beaten up in public view
Five of those killed were just onlookers

MUDIGONDA (Khammam dt): The village has become a hot spot in the State following the Saturday’s police firing that left seven persons dead. It has bee receiving a steady stream of visitors for the past three days. The police and the judiciary furnished their own reports on the incident.

What really culminated in the killings? Political parties are flaunting their own theories. But the fact commonly acknowledged in the village is that relations of the police with the CPI(M) cadres were far from being cordial for quite some time.

The police had tough time in dealing with them many a time. Mandal unit leader of the party Bandi Ramesh, who is known for his uncompromising attitude had been at loggerheads with local Sub Inspector Venkata Reddy. Their relations had been strained further because of clashes before the gram panchayat elections in Peddamandava village in August last. Both Ramesh and his wife, Padma, Sarpanch of Chirumari village were in the forefront of the land struggle. They were the main organisers of the bandh in the village. The Sub-Inspector visited the protest camp, where the party men sat on a fast, twice in the morning and asked them give up the protest, but they did not relent.

The crowd at the protest camp was less than 300. According to an eye witnesses, a few constables in plain clothes went to the

camp and sounded a word of caution to all those known to them and asked them to leave the place.

Around noon, a 20-member special party reached the village along with Additional Superintendent of Police M. Ramesh Babu. Armed with SLRs

and AK 47s, 12 of them were entrusted with the protecting the police station while eight others stormed into the protest camp. Mr. Bandi Ramesh was

dragged out from the tent and beaten up in full view of the public. People, who had nothing to do with the protest, gathered in a large numbers at the spot.

Women too nor spared

Five of those killed in the police firing were just onlookers. The special party police did not spare women activists who came out to the rescue of their leader.

They removed him physically from the spot. According to the eye witnesses, except for the Sub Inspector, the local police hardly any role in the police firing. Over 100 rounds were fired entirely by the special party

meant for anti-naxalite operations, drafted for the bandh duty from Kothagudem.

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