A retired teacher P Vaikuntam, V Satyanarayana, Sadhu Satyam and others, all in their 70s, gathered at a memorial and recalled this day they witnessed 67 years ago.
“I was just nine years old, but I can still visualise what happened on this day. The Nizam police and the Razakars opened fire indiscriminately and killed 22 people on September 2, 1947,” recounted Mr Vaikuntam sitting under a tree at the Telangana Martyrs memorial built in this town to perpetuate the memories of those horrific days.
India gained independence on August 15, 1947, but the present Hyderabad state was independent under the rule of Nizam. Soon after the Indian independence, people across this region came out agitating for merger into Indian union. They wanted an end to the Nizam’s tyrannical regime.
However, the Nizam police and the Razakar armed militants tried to suppress the people’s movement. In this town, the police warned people from coming out of their homes on September 2, 1947. People from surrounding villages came in large numbers to hoist the Indian flag.
Even before they reached the open space besides the present bus stand, the police opened fire on them. The Razakars who were little away chased the fleeing people and killed them too.
Reminiscing those bad days, Mr Vaikuntam said in Rangapuram village, the Razakars tied three people to a tree and shot them brutally and in Laxmipuram, the Razakar army looted the gold and money and molested women. While leaving the village, they set ablaze the huts.
The small but bustling town Parkal was one of the places where people raised their banner against the Nizam and came out voluntarily to fight his army.
In 2003, the BJP leader who is present Governor of Maharashtra, Ch Vidyasagar Rao helped build a moving memorial which became an attractive spot for those visiting this town.
