07, Aug 2015

| Friday , August 7 , 2015 |

Our Special Correspondent
Anand Teltumbde at the protest rally
Hyderabad, Aug. 6: Babasaheb Ambedkar’s grandson and IIT Kharagpur professor Anand Teltumbde today led a march to a Telangana village from where 45 Dalit families had been thrown out by the dominant Boya tribesmen, rattling the administration enough to promise action.
A year ago, the state government had given homestead land in Pathapally village, 150km from Hyderabad, to these Dalit families from the neighbourhood. But in early May, the village’s 400-strong Boya community drove them out and began burying their dead on the plot to prevent the Dalits’ return.
Today, Teltumbde, who has written on Dalit issues, led the 8km Chalo Pathapally march, organised by Dalit activists and academics from a point on the highway up to the village.
Anticipating a backlash from the Boyas, the Mahbubnagar district police prevented the procession from entering the village.
But shaken and embarrassed by the publicity triggered by the participation of an Ambedkar descendant, additional superintendent of police D.V. Srinivas Rao and special collector Vanaja Devi, who had rushed to the village, promised justice for the ousted Dalits.