Social boycott of Dalit sarpanch of Bussapur village in Mendora mandal Jakkula Mamatha ended on Thursday with the intervention of authorities.
The oppressor upper caste Gurudu Reddy community and the victim Dalits reached a compromise in the presence of Revenue Divisional Officer Srinivas, Assistant Commissioner of Police Sivakumar and others at a meeting held at gram panchayat premises.
Later, the police registered a case under relevant sections of the SC, ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against Nayampet Shekhar Reddy, Arugumeedi Mohan Reddy and Koppelavari Ganga Reddy, who were responsible for the social boycott of the sarpanch, belonging to Mala community.
Complaint lodged
Though the actual social boycott was imposed on October 29 on Ms. Mamatha, who was unanimously elected sarpanch in 2014, it came to light a couple of days ago when sarpanch’s husband Srinivas, an ex-MPTC, lodged a complaint with Collector and Commissioner of Police.
“We did not bring the matter to the notice of media and officials as we were afraid of attacks. Though the caste Hindus imposed a social boycott on us by restricting residents from talking to our family and not sending a tractor for ploughing our land, we did not come out in open all these days. Though they had resolved to expel us from society two months ago they stopped talking only from December 31,” said Srinivas.
Others stay away
Though there is a Village Development Committee, a parallel power centre, comprising representatives from all communities it did not involve itself in the matter. Only two Reddy communities — Koppela Sangham and Nomula Sangham — having 150 landed families took the decision. They earlier banished washermen families and an ST youth for their alleged disobedience, he said.
The clash between the Dalit families and the two Gurudu Reddy Sanghams started after Mr. Mamatha and her husband refused to sign on documents relating to transfer of title of a 3.30 acre farm land leading to the decision to boycott the Dalit family. The tiff came into the open during the recent revenue records cleansing programme launched by the State government.
Title dispute
The village with 2,800 residents, has 18 Dalit families which used to own 48 acre land. Some of the Dalit families sold their lands to Gurudu Reddys. The documents showed the title of the disputed land in the name of ancestors of Jakkula family and another family. However, the Reddys insisted that their grandparents purchased the land from Dalit families but the title was not transferred.
Jakkula Srinivas argued that if the Koppela and Nomula Sanghams could show evidence of the change in title, he would give up the land.
Civil case
RDO Srinivas made it clear to the clashing groups that the land matter would be heard in his court while the case of social boycott would be looked into by the police. Eleti Srinivas Reddy of the village said that both parties had called for a truce and that the sarpanch would be respected as usual.
SI of Police P. Raghavender told The Hindu that the village is peaceful. and police were maintaining a round-the-clock vigil.
