The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : SC pregnant woman suffers brutal attack

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Thursday, Aug 28, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

SC pregnant woman suffers brutal attack

Santosh Patnaik

Upper caste persons of Kodavatipudi village ‘beat her up’ causing miscarriage

-Photo: C. V. Subrahmanyam

Seeking justice: Kalla Lova in dharna at the Collectorate on Wednesday.

VISAKHAPATNAM: Her dream to have a child and live happily with her family was dashed to the ground after she suffered an abortion during a brutal attack by the upper castes.

Kalla Lova, 19, who was four months pregnant, is now traumatised after an attack by influential persons of Kodavatipudi village in Kotavuratla mandal, about 100 km from here.

Ignoring her pleas, she was dragged by her hair from her one-room tenement and beaten black and blue for not disclosing the whereabouts of her husband. Both of them were eking out a living as daily wage labourers. “Immediately after the assault by a group consisting of over 100 people, I suffered an abortion. Later, I named Bhimaraju as the accused in my complaint but he is allowed to go scot-free,” she said on Wednesday, after staging a dharna at the Collectorate along with the other injured.

Protest mode

Lova said, the upper castes wanted to detain her husband, as he, along with other SCs had decided not to take part in pulling a cart carrying ‘prasadam’ offered by the upper caste families as part of village deity’s annual festival. It is an age-old practice of the village for the Scheduled Caste persons to pull the cart during the festival.

The decision about banning the SCs from pulling the cart was taken as a sequel to an altercation over serving of liquor to upper castes at a belt shop in glasses earlier used by Scheduled Castes.

Their decision enraged the upper castes and late in the evening on Thursday last, they attacked the 66 SC families of the village, en masse. Lova said that she was abused and assaulted when she was serving dinner to her in-laws.

‘Attack pre-planned’

“The attack appeared to be pre-planned as none was spared by the gang which was well-armed,” she said with tears rolling down.

Lova and others are on a protest mode demanding arrest of all the accused and an end to discrimination against Scheduled Castes. “There is no entry for SCs in temples. Double glass system is still in practice,” said Sesharatnam, joint secretary, Kulavivaksha Vyatireka Porata Samiti.

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