Case primary details

Fact finding date

Case Incident details

Case summary

Brief details of the incident:

Devarapalli Swapna (20) D/o Dharma Rao SC Madiga by caste is resident of SC Colony, Punadipadu, Kankipadu mandal, Krishna District. Swapna studied upto Intermediate and her parents are agricultural labourers. On the day of the incident i.e. 19^th  April 2013, she was going with her cousin brother, Mr Raviteja son of Dharma Rao’s brother Devarapalli Ramaiah.

On the fateful day of 19^th April 2013 Swapna alongwith her cousin brother Devarapalli Ravi Teja(22) went  to Gunadala in Vijayawada around 6-00pm and  reached back to Kankipadu Bus Stand around 00-10am in the midnight (20^th early hours).  As there were no buses or autos to Punadipadu, Swapna and her brother Ravi Teja were on their way back to home by walk. As they were passing over the Lukky Wine shop at Punadipadu, the accused Bandaru Ram Prasad, Pallapu Venkateswara Rao and Goddalla Venkanna of the same village came on a bike, pulled the chunni of Swapna and tried to sexually abuse her. Ravi Teja pleaded them to leave his sister and quarrelled with them. They beat Ravi Teja and left away. They again came back, hit Ravi Teja with the bike from the back side and smacked him with beer bottle and an iron rod on the head. In the mean time Swapna snatched the bike keys and shouted for rescue. As Ravi Teja had severe bleeding from the head, they got afraid and ran away. Swapna called to her parents over phone and they came and moved Ravi Teja immediately to the hospital. Ravi Teja was admitted in Boppana Super Speciality Hospital at Penamaluru. He succumbed to the injuries at 12-40 pm on 24^th April 2013.    

Background of the village:

Punadipadu village comes under Kankipadu mandal of Krishna district and is about 18kms away from Vijayawada city. The village consists of 500 houses of SCs, 400 houses of Kammas and 700 houses of Vadderas approximately. The village is dominated by the OCs (Kammas) and they stand in support of BCs (Vadderas). The political power is in the hands of Kammas. Maddala Sri Lakshmi w/o Thirumala Rao was the sarpanch and her husband Thirumal Rao was the vice-sarpanch and they belong to Kamma caste. The history says that the Kammas and as well as the Vadderas have beaten the SCs on many occasions and the caste elders of Kamma community settle the dispute and force for compromise. The fact finding of DSS has revealed that many such incidents took place in the past ten years and for instance Bandela Guruvaiah, Guddeti Chanti and others were beaten and later compromised though they lodged complaints. The main reason for this humiliation and vulnerability is that the SCs don’t hold agricultural land, are illiterate, don’t have any jobs and are agricultural labourers. In their day to day life SCs will have to depend on Kammas and Vadderas for everything.       

A case has been registered in Kankipadu PS, Vijayawada Urban Police District bearing Cr No: 105/2013 U/s 304 A and later altered to Sections 302, 506, 354 r/w 34 of IPC and 3(2) (V) of SC/ST (PoA) Act of 1989 and 354 (A) of Nirbhaya Act 2013.

Interventions:

•  Conducted fact finding.
•  Had exclusive meetings with the Investigation Officer, Joint Collector and Collector of  Krishna District.
•  Submitted representations to the commissions and state actors.

State Actors Approached:

•          ACP-East Zone and CP-Vijayawada
•          JC and Collector of Krishna district

Present status:

•         Accused arrested and remanded
•         Case is in the court

List of Documents:

•          Fact finding report
•          FIR
•          Post mortem report
•          Representations to district and state level officials and commissions