Two Adivasi women in Telangana were tonsured and assaulted after the village panchayat accused them for abetting the suicide of a 16-year-old boy of the same community, The Indian Express reported on Tuesday.
The incident took place in full public view on September 18 in Konda Mallepally of Telangana’s Nalgonda district, reported The Times of India. The police booked eight persons in the case on Monday including the boy’s family members and community elders who tonsured the women and abused them.
The accused persons have been booked under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons), 342 (wrongful confinement), 355 (assault or use of criminal force to dishonour a person) and 509 (insulting the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code, reported The Indian Express.
On September 14, Raju Ramavath, a Class 10 student, died by suicide in Devarakonda town, where he lived in a rented house. The reason for his suicide is not known.
However, after a family member accessed Ramavath’s mobile phone he came to know that the boy was in contact with the two Adivasi women from the village. The family alleged that the two women were involved in prostitution and blackmailed the boy.
“For the last two months, they [the two women] were in regular contact with the boy,” Nalgonda Superintendent of Police Rema Rajeswari told The Indian Express. “They trapped him and started demanding money, after which he started borrowing money from others.”
After he was not able to pay the money, Ramavath panicked and died by suicide. Family members of the boy sought the village panchayat’s intervention which held the two women responsible for driving him to take his life. The panchayat decided that the two women deserved punishment, police told The Times of India.
The panchayat had allegedly issued an order that the police should not be informed about the punishment meted out to the two women, reported The Indian Express. However, the police were informed of the incident through a tip-off and convinced the two Adivasi women to register a complaint.
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