A Dalit woman was allegedly beaten and stripped by a group of people for obstructing the ground-level work for laying the foundation stone for houses in a disputed land in the Jerripothulapalem area under the Pendurthi police station limits in the city.
Though the incident took place on December 18, it came to light only on Wednesday.
Following a complaint filed by the victim, seven out of eight persons accused of committing the crime had been arrested. The woman was taken to the King George Hospital.
DCP (Law and Order, South Zone) T. Ravi Kumar Murthy said the government had recently allocated 0.7 acres in Survey Number 77 in the Jerripothulapalem area to 22 beneficiaries under the NTR Housing Scheme, with each of them getting 3.3 cents.
The victim’s sister and a few other Dalit families are said to be cultivating the land which they claim had been assigned to them by the government more than two decades ago.
The adjacent land was later allotted to the Andhra Pradesh Beverages Corporation for setting up a bottling company.
It is said the government has taken over the land from the Dalits for not taking up any construction work (houses) and allotted it to a group of people said to be close to a few TDP leaders.
On Monday, a few people reached the area to lay the foundation stone. The victim and a few others resisted their move alleging that their land was being grabbed by TDP leaders. This led to the clash between the two groups.
In the process, the woman was reportedly assaulted and stripped.
Leaders and activists of Opposition parties alleged that some TDP leaders had been trying to grab the land with fabricated documents. They staged a dharna at the disputed site on Wednesday, protesting against the assault on the Dalit woman.
The DCP said that cases were registered against seven persons, including local TDP leaders M. Appala Raju and his wife Parvathi, under the SC/ST Atrocities Act and Sections 447 and 323 of the IPC.
The police asked the Revenue officials to sort out the dispute immediately.
