Attacks against Dalits on the rise in Tamil Nadu's Vellamputhur: activists

VILLUPURAM: Following the attack on a Dalit household in Vellamputhur, which left an eight-year-old boy dead and his 14-year-old sister and mother critical, it has been noted that such attacks in the region was on the rise.

Speaking to Express, organiser of NGO Social Awareness Society for Youth (SASY) Lalitha said that it was assumed that the family was butchered when they tried to save the girl from abuse. The girl, who had sustained grievous injuries, needed 12 stitches in her private parts, she said.

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However, Arakandanallur inspector Jeyavel called it an ‘attempt to molest’ and said the girl had resisted rape. This was the report of the doctors, he said. A special team of police was conducting an investigation with the help of sniffer dogs, he added. At the time of going to press, the girl was being taken to the JIPMER hospital in Puducherry.

This is the third attack against Dalits within the Arakandanallur police limits since the beginning of this year. On January 1, bodies of three Dalit youth were found laid out on the road near Vasanthakrishnapuram Dalit Colony, with identical bruises. One of the boys was said to be in love with a caste Hindu girl. The incident had raised a lot of questions after a man surrendered amid huge public outcry, saying the boys had died in an accident involving his tractor.

On February 2, a mob comprising caste Hindu men, armed with logs, sugarcane scythes and such weapons, had gone on a campaign at Veerpandi Madhura Pulikal village near Tirukoilur. They vandalised 22 houses in the colony. The marauders sawed a puppy in half and left the blood on the walls of the house ‘as a warning’.

While Vellamputhur is seven kilometres away from Manampoondi, Vasanthakrishnapuram and Veerapandi are located at a distance of 10 kms from Manampoondi.