Two-and-a-half decades after a brutal carnage was unleashed in Tsunduru village of Andhra Pradesh, in which eight persons were lynched and another young man died in police firing, the kin of the victims still await justice.
There has been no progress after a bunch of appeals by the government and the Dalit associations were filed in the Supreme Court in June 2014.
The delay in the appointment of a public prosecutor, after senior public prosecutor M.N. Rao resigned and senior advocate Bojja Tarakam was taken ill, left the appeals pending.
Senior advocate Altaf Ahamed representing the Dalit associations has since died and there has been no replacement.
The State government filed an appeal in the Supreme Court in June 2014 against the Andhra Pradesh High Court’s verdict acquitting all the 56 accused in the case, citing lack of evidence.
On April 6, 1991, eight young men fleeing for safety from a raging mob of ‘upper’ caste men, were lynched with axes.
Their mutilated bodies were stuffed in gunny bags and thrown into the Tungabhadra drain. After protests erupted, one more youth, K. Anil Kumar, was killed in police firing.
Defining momentThe incident marked a defining moment in the struggle against caste oppression and galvinised Dalit organisations across the country.
Under pressure from Dalit and human rights organisations, the A.P. government set up a special court at Tsunduru under the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
In 2007, the court convicted 21 persons to life imprisonment and 35 others to one year of rigorous imprisonment, besides imposing a fine of Rs.2,000 each.
Verdict quashedThe Andhra Pradesh High Court however, quashed the verdict and acquitted all the accused citing lack of evidence.
A Division Bench comprising Justices L. Narasimha Reddy and M.S. Jaiswal turned down the verdict of trial court saying the prosecution had failed to prove the exact time of death, place of occurrence and the identity of attackers.
