Collector, SP to appear before SC Commission

KURNOOL: Kurnool District Collector Ch. Vijayamohan and Superintendent of Police A. Ravikrishna left for New Delhi on Monday to appear before the National Scheduled Castes Commission on January 24 on being summoned by it in connection with the suicide of a Dalit farmer in the Kurnool Collectorate premises on October 15 last year.

Kiran (28) belonging to Alamuru in Allagadda mandal in the district consumed pesticide near the Collector’s chamber and died in the general hospital a day later. He resorted to the extreme step deploring ‘apathy’ of the officials after representing to the Collector that agricultural land being tilled by his family for last six decades had been taken over for a burial ground and he was not allotted alternative land. He had left a suicide note naming 16 persons as being responsible for driving him to commit suicide.

The National SC Commission took

suo motu cognizance of the case and served notices on the Collector and the SP to appear before it, according to sources.

Suicide bid

Meanwhile, S. Hussain Ali (40) of Chinnarajupalem village in Banaganapalle mandal in the district attempted self-immolation in the Collectorate premises on Monday, peeved at the ‘apathy’ of the revenue officials in not identifying the house site allotted to his wife Shaik Fathima Bi in the village poramboke land in 2011, despite issuing a patta.

Hussain Ali, who submitted a representation in the Prajavani greivance redressal programme in the Collectorate on Monday, alleged indifference of officials to his repeated representations and doused himself in kerosene. He lamented that he had been going round the tahsildar and the RDO offices and had submitted four representations to the District Collector and nine representations to the SP, but their response was lukewarm.

Claiming that he was a poor and homeless man with wife and three children, Hussain Ali said the court gave a ruling in his favour and the Government had sanctioned him a house on December 26 last year. The Kurnool III police thwarted his immolation bid. Incidentally, all his representations contained a threat to commit suicide if justice was not rendered to his family.