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Indian Express
17 hours ago
- Indian Express
Behind rape of minor Dalit girl by 14 men for 2 years, failure of systems meant to protect someone like her
At a hospital in an Andhra Pradesh district, a 15-year-old girl, almost eight months pregnant, spends her days in a 150-bed ward, surrounded by expectant mothers and wailing infants. Authorities have deemed it dangerous to terminate her pregnancy at this stage, and say sending her home is not an option either – the teenager is the victim of sexual abuse over two years by 14 men, who are from an influential community in the village where the crimes took place. According to officials, the investigation, which began in the first week of June after the 15-year-old's mother approached the police, has revealed the failure of systems that were designed to protect someone like her: The daughter of a single mother, struck by poverty, and belonging to SC (Madiga) community in a village dominated by forward castes. 'It was her young age, vulnerability and caste because of which the men could prey on and exploit her for two years, leaving her pregnant at 15. The systems that are in place to check on her welfare failed. Her class teacher did not even report that she had dropped out of school,'' Superintendent of Police V Ratna told The Indian Express. 'It has been decided to keep the girl in the hospital until delivery. If she is released from the hospital and sent back to her village, nobody knows what will happen. She is being provided counselling and other care. After delivery, the mother and child will be moved to a government home for women,' the SP, who is leading the investigation, said. The girl's ordeal began when she was 13 and in the 8th grade. As per the police report, after the girl's father died about three years ago, her mother moved to a nearby village close to the Karnataka border. According to the police, one of the accused found the girl and her classmate, also from the SC community, sitting alone after school and snapped photos on his mobile phone. 'Using violence, intimidation and threats of leaking the photos on social media, two accused first forced the girl to submit to their demands and raped her. They also filmed the act. These videos and photos were used to exploit the girl by the friends and acquaintances of the primary accused,' the SP said. After finding out that the girl was pregnant, her mother approached the police in the first week of June. On June 9, the police arrested six persons, and subsequently 11 more. The police remand report names 17 accused – 14 who allegedly raped her for nearly two years, and three persons, including the minor classmate, for not informing authorities. All have been arrested. The arrested accused include three minors and 14 men aged between 18 and 51. They have been charged under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, and the Information Technology Act. Police are also looking at the failure of the girl's class 10 teachers to report her absence or inquire why she had stopped attending school. 'It is SSC, the most important class. If a student is not seen in class for several days, any teacher would notice and conduct a check. Her teachers failed to do so,' SP Ratna said. The Grama Mahila Samrakshana Karyadarsi – volunteers integrated into the system as 'Mahila Police' – also failed to conduct welfare checks on the single mother and her child. 'This, despite it being known that the mother was depressed after her husband passed away and was finding it hard to work and take care of herself and her daughter,' an official said. Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers, who are supposed to visit the family often, also failed to take note. 'There is a very small population of SCs in the village. Of the 17 accused, 14 are from the Boya community, while the three who kept quiet are from the SC community. When the case came to light, the Boya community leaders allegedly tried to get the girl married to her SC classmate and hush up the matter,' an official said. Although her delivery date has been set by doctors after July 21, police have decided to keep her in the hospital as they deem it 'risky' to send her back home. 'The accused, though they are in jail, can use any means necessary to coerce the survivor to withdraw the case. As Dalits, she and her mother are vulnerable and may be forced to relent,' an official said. Blood tests have also revealed the survivor is anaemic, and hospital sources said she is battling depression. Officials said doctors are working to provide her with the requisite care.
Hans India
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Balancing push of castes and pull of vote banks
Hyderabad: Sending across the message that the long-term need of keeping the vote bank intact prevails over the immediate need to accommodate the interests of various competing communities, the Congress high command, going by the composition of the expanded cabinet, has accorded priority to Mala, Madiga and Mudiraj, with MLAs from these three castes being inducted into the state cabinet as ministers. The appointments, while reflecting the Congress government's declared focus on social justice, comes amidst determined push by influential communities, including Reddy, Velama, Kamma andKapu, as well as a few dominant communities among the Backward Classes. Party legislators belonging to these communities were simply ignored in the cabinet expansion, notwithstanding the potential for trouble from disgruntled elements. Overall, the expansion exercise balances the push of castes and the pull of vote banks. Anticipating a revolt from certain leaders of these communities, the party leaders have already started holding out the olive branch to the miffed senior leaders who, after all, had been dreaming, day and night, of becoming ministers in the cabinet expansion. Noticeably, most of the disappointed aspirants for cabinet berths are from dominant communities. They include senior leaders P Sudhrshan Reddy (Bodhan MLA), MalreddyRanga Reddy (Ibrahimpatnam) and Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy (Munugode), who had lobbied strongly with the party high command for a berth in the cabinet expansion. Senior leader from Velama community K Premsagar Rao (Mancherial), Ellareddy MLA Madanmohan from Kamma caste and D Nagendar from Kapu community too had brought a lot of pressure on party leaders for berths. Curiously, the Congress leadership turned a deaf ear to these leaders' loaded pleas at the eleventh hour, sending another message that the long-pending cabinet expansion cannot be put off indefinitely in view of inevitable power struggle among MLAs representing various communities. Leaders told The Hans Indiathat state Congress in-charge Meenakshi Natarajan boldly took the responsibility of the composition of the state cabinet and cherry-picked the candidates without succumbing to pressure from anyone. The emerging role of Mala and Madiga leaders assumed significance in the light of the recent enactment of a law relating to sub-categorization of the SC communities. This explains why MLAs G Vivek (Mala) and A Laxman (Madiga) got the opportunity. Considering the big vote bank of the Mudirajcommunity in the state, Makthal MLA V Srihari has been inducted. With the induction of three new ministers, the strength of the Telangana cabinet rises to 12, including the Chief Minister. Against the full sanctioned strength of 18, six positions remained vacant, leaving room for further expansion. Following Sunday's swearing-in, three cabinet berths will continue to remain unfilled. 'Another three berths are still vacant. These will be filled by inducting MLAs from other communities 'at an appropriate time', sources said. 'The party will definitely recognize the services of all senior leaders at the right time,' a senior leader said. He confirmed that Meenakshi Natarajan and TPCC president Mahesh Kumar Goud were reaching out to the sulking senior leaders and convincing them to wait for 'some more time'. Rangareddy had already threatened to quit the party if he was not included in the list of new cabinet ministers. Sensing immediate trouble, Meenakshi, in a fire-fighting mode, spoke to the Ibrahimpatnam MLA and assured him of justice.
Time of India
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Another T'gana Maoist leader killed in Bijapur
1 2 Hyderabad: In a continuing crackdown on Maoist leadership, security forces gunned down a senior CPI (Maoist) functionary from Telangana in an encounter near Bijapur in Chhattisgarh on Friday. The slain cadre was identified as Mailarapu Adelu, known by his aliases Bhaskar, Jangu Dada, and Mahesh—a key figure within the outlawed group. Bhaskar served as a Telangana state committee member and secretary of the Mancherial–Kumuram Bheem-Asifabad (MKB) divisional committee, a crucial zone for Maoist operations in Telangana. Undercover operations The encounter was part of a coordinated offensive by the Chhattisgarh police's special task force (STF), district reserve guard (DRG), and the CoBRA unit of the Central Reserve Police Force, aimed at dismantling the upper echelons of Maoist leadership in the region. Aged 53, Bhaskar hailed from Pochera village in Boath mandal of Telangana's Adilabad district. Born into a Scheduled Caste (Madiga) farming family, he reportedly dropped out of school before joining the Maoist ranks. Over the years, he rose through the cadre to become a senior strategist and operative . Fluent in Telugu, Hindi, and Gondi, he was said to have strong ties with tribal communities like the Gothikoyas, and was reportedly carrying an AK-47 rifle during the encounter. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 자신이 전략의 달인이라고 생각하시나요? 레이드 섀도우 레전드 Undo Telangana police records show he carried a bounty of 20 lakh. His wife, Kanthi Lingavva alias Anitha, also a divisional committee member in the same zone, was killed in an encounter in Dec 2022. Major setbacks to Maoists Friday's operation comes on the heels of the killing of central committee member Sudhakar, a top Maoist ideologue and head of the technical wing, who was neutralised in the same district on Thursday. These back-to-back operations follow the high-profile death of CPI (Maoist) general secretary Basavaraju in an encounter in Narayanpur on May 21. At 70, Basavaraju was the topmost leader of the outfit, and his death is widely seen as a severe blow to the Maoist command chain. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Eid wishes , messages , and quotes !
Hans India
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Madiga MLAs tap Cong top brass, step up efforts for berth in cabinet
Hyderabad: The Madiga MLAs who have been camping in Delhi for over a week called on AICC President Mallikarjun Kharge and AICC general secretary KC Venugopal on Thursday, urging them to provide a berth for the community. In wake of high speculations over State Cabinet's expansion soon, the delegation, led by Adluri Laxman Kumar, the Dharmapuri MLA, consisted of Manakondur MLA Kavvampally Satyanarayana, Thungathurthi MLA Mandula Samuel and a few others made their best efforts to convince the top brass. Following Thursday's meeting, they said that the high command has responded positively. Briefing about the meeting to the media in Delhi, the MLAs said that they have requested AICC President Kharge and KC Venugopal to give them a berth in the cabinet. They emphasised that this was not an issue of six MLAs belonging to the Madiga community, but an issue related to all the Madiga people of Telangana. It may be mentioned here that four MLAs on May 29 landed in Delhi to press their demand. They cited this as their fair demand and held that the Madigas should definitely be given a berth in the cabinet. The MLAs said that the Madiga community has been supporting the Congress from the beginning and emphasised that they have no objection to giving Malas a place in the cabinet.
The Hindu
06-06-2025
- General
- The Hindu
A museum in search of a forever home in Telangana
Somewhere inside a forgotten room in Hyderabad, a crow with the hood of a cobra waits. Not a living creature, but a riveting brass totem with a story so rich, it can take hours to tell. Around it lie ghostly wind instruments made of hide and bone, leather bags that breathe music, and shadowy relics from India's ancient forest tribes. These are not just objects; they are echoes of long-lost worlds. And now, these artefacts, many of which once mimicked the wind, birds and rain, are in search of a home — a home in Hyderabad bordering the deep jungles and forest tract of central India, where these instruments were first born from ingenuity, ritual, and breath. These have journeyed far to get here, collected over five decades by one man obsessed with memory and history: ethnographer Jayadheer Tirumala Rao. His treasure trove lies scattered across six rooms tucked deep within the Telugu University campus in Nampally. Here, between sunlit corridors and dusty alcoves, Rao moves like a man among old friends. The wide courtyard is littered with weathered cartwheels, carved doors, door frames, totem poles and what looks like a sculptor's madness — but each piece has its own story. 'This is a hanging inkpot made with brass,' the 75-year-old says, lifting a crouched, bull-shaped vessel with a hidden cap for dipping ink. 'It was a gift from a student while I was teaching in Hanamkonda.' There are 200 known varieties of hanging inkpots among Adivasi communities, and Rao has managed to collect 40 of them. The collector and his calling It all began half a century ago in Warangal district of Telangana, when a young postgraduate student was nudged away from academia by his mentor, folklorist and asked to take the tougher road — field work. Rao took off, hitchhiking, riding rickety buses and walking for miles through Telangana's interior in the mid-1970s, when roads were few and forests many. 'I travelled by train, I travelled by bus. I mostly walked, as there were hardly any buses in 1975, to research and understand folk and Adivasi culture. I began collecting musical instruments that did not work,' he recalls, sitting among his archive. 'Once, I started walking from Charla in Bhadrachalam in the morning and by 8 p.m., I realised I was lost. I walked all night and somehow ended up at the same point I had started from. That was scary.' Gradually, however, those walks bore fruit. Rao's first acquisition was the 'Jamadika'in the 1970s— a haunting stringed instrument enclosed in a drum, played only by a sub-clan of the Madiga community. As he documented folk ballads and songs of the Telangana Peasant Rebellion (Rythuangu Poratam) and folk literature, Rao also began collecting objects from the communities he visited — musical relics, domestic tools and even pieces of performance history. One evening, during a visit to the Saradlu community about 30 kilometres from Kolanupaka, a village in Yadadri Bhuvanagiri district, he stayed back to listen to folk songs of the Telangana Armed Rebellion. The men invited him along for a hunt. That night, his dinner was roast garden lizards. 'That was it. That was my meal,' he says with a shrug. Then he holds up a brass object that looks like a bird. 'This is a crow with a snake hood in the middle. It is a totemic object for a clan, called Kaki Padagala Varu. They keep it close during a performance of the Mahabharata, that may last for three days with music and old manuscripts,' shares Rao. Part of his collection is the 'Thitthi',a leather bag attached to a bamboo pipe used by a community called Kommuluvaru that hums like an ancestral bagpipe. And the rare 'Bruhat Kinnera' with 13 steps and three gourds, an instrument even older than the veena. 'Very few are gifts. Most of them have been purchased,' says Rao's wife, a homemaker who has shouldered the endless task of cleaning and caring for this vast, uncatalogued collection. The instruments and artefacts — totemic objects, musical devices, writing tools, masks, flags, household pieces — lie undocumented, without labels or timelines or the gentle touch of a museologist, in these six rooms of the Telugu University. Yet, they hold within them the pulse of India's earliest communities — the Gonds, Saradlu, Totis, Koyas, Gutti Koyas, Pradhans, Mauryas, Chenchus, Lambadis, and the clans of Manda Hechu, Bolla Pujari, Tera Chiralavaru Daccali, Chindu, Mastidu, Runjavaru and Maladasari. These communities, whose homelands once lay deep in the forested heart of central India, are now vanishing along with their cultures. Struggle for shelter Over a century ago, Osmania University (OU) rose from a 2,500-acre expanse that once belonged to one of the courtesans of the Nizam of Hyderabad. It became the first university in India to adopt Urdu as its medium of instruction, and its campus, dotted with ancient stepwells and serais, has since become more than just a seat of higher learning. It has been a crucible of protest, its student movements playing a pivotal role in the birth of Telangana in June 2014. It was here, amid this charged legacy of scholarship and dissent, that Rao's long-wandering museum collection was finally offered a space to rest. After decades of being crammed into scattered rooms in Telugu University, two disused bungalows nestled in a quiet, leafy quadrangle off the main road of OU were allocated for the museum. The move came with the backing of Telangana Chief Minister, Reddy. But the students of OU have other plans. 'The land where the museum is set to be established is OU land. It cannot be leased out to private individuals. The university used to have 2,500 acres. Now, it has shrunk to 1,300 acres. Once land is leased, the university never regains control,' says Druhan, president of the OU unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), who is spearheading the protests against the establishment. Tensions escalated quickly. Work on the two bungalows came to a sudden halt after student leaders reportedly threatened the labourers and contractors at the site. They left in haste. The buildings now lie silent once again, caught in the crossfire between heritage and protest. 'Why involve private parties at all,' asks Raju, another ABVP leader from the university. 'OU can run such a museum itself. Even Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy had once promised ₹10 crore for a museum, but that proposal was never taken up.' Land within the university has long been a bone of contention, with student unions seeing themselves as its vigilant custodians. Over the years, various encroachments — some with questionable legitimacy, others with official paperwork — have eaten into the once-sprawling campus. And for student leaders, every new construction represents another line of defense to hold. Back in 1994, a one-man commission led by Justice Reddy drew a firm red line around OU land. After reviewing years of land dealings, his report cited a crucial resolution passed by the University's Syndicate as far back as December 26, 1986. It read with finality: 'There was a firm resolution of the Syndicate of the Osmania University, totally abandoning the practice of allotting University lands to outside agencies for whatever purpose, educational research or otherwise.' In essence, the university had resolved to shut the door, permanently, on all outside claims to its land. Living culture, not just curios But the question at the heart of the current standoff is this: can an archive of folk memory, painstakingly gathered over half a century, be seen as just another 'outside agency'? 'This isn't a private collection to be locked up in a shelf at home,' says journalist Ramachandra Murthy, one of the earliest and most vocal supporters of Rao's mission. 'These cultural objects have travelled as far as Paris, were once displayed at the Rashtrapati Nilayam, and even spent time in the State Gallery of Art. They are not museum curios for personal gratification; they are pieces of living culture. This kind of collection cannot be managed by an individual. It needs institutional support,' says Murthy. Many in the academic world agree. 'The students protesting have been misled,' former professor and civil society activist, had been quoted as saying. 'This collection could be of immense value to researchers working on tribal life, history, anthropology and music. It is not just about artefacts; it is about Telangana's cultural history.' Hyderabad, after all, is no stranger to personal collections becoming public legacies. It is home to perhaps the biggest cache of cultural artefacts acquired by one person — Salar Jung. These objects were the genesis of the Salar Jung Museum, one of India's largest and most visited institutions of national importance. Tucked into a quiet bylane of Domalguda is another legacy: the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, with its enviable spread of miniature paintings and manuscripts, a quiet cultural gem of the city. Rao's journey, however, has been less institutional and far more intimate. He recalls an early turning point, nearly four decades ago, when the full weight of his collection first dawned on him. 'I was shifting houses in Chikkadpally area [of Hyderabad]. I had booked a small vehicle for three trips. But as the workers started hauling things down from the attic, they kept discovering more and more. Eventually, they got frustrated and demanded extra money. That is when I realised, this collection had grown larger than I imagined,' he reminisces. Now, nearly 40 years later, Rao stands at another crossroads. His collection, born of long treks through forests, folk memory and fading oral traditions has once again outgrown its shelter. Will it finally find a permanent home within OU's storied grounds? Or will the struggle to shelter India's sonic and cultural past continue, one room — and one protest — at a time?
