A 26-year-old tribal woman from Telangana’s Nagarkurnool district was tortured in public for a week, beating her and rubbing chilli powder into her eyes and genitals, which were reportedly also burned, when a mob approached the mother of three over missing money and went violent.
Disturbing videos of the incident showed the woman, dressed in a pink saree, squatting on the ground surrounded by screaming villagers; in one video, she stays immobile while those surrounding her, particularly another woman dressed in an orange saree and brandishing a huge stick, shout and screech at her.
The video then takes a tragic turn as one of the males becomes aggressive; he grabs the woman’s throat, forces her to the ground, and stomps on her.
Four people arrested & remanded to judicial custody, #NagarkurnoolSP #GaikwadVaibhavRaghunath told @ndtv & clarified that above video is from couple of days before 2nd incident of torture & burning of private parts in which #BandiVenkatesh, wife, victim sister, husband arrested pic.twitter.com/iqgnDjDgo4
— Uma Sudhir (@umasudhir) June 22, 2024
Others push him away, and the young woman rises and attempts to flee, only to be forced back to the ground by a second man, who appears to try to tear her saree.
Tempers then flare as some persons are hit with a wooden stick.
Another horrifying footage shows a second woman being pulled into the fray. She pulls the woman wearing the pink saree by the hair, wrestles her to the ground, and brutally kicks and slaps her.
After a few minutes, she is taken away from her victim.
Even more horrifying, District Superintendent of Police Gaikwad Vaibhav Raghunath informed NDTV that these films were taken at least two days before the woman was raped and tormented for the second time.
The woman was initially admitted to a state-run hospital in the district before being transferred to the Nizam’ Institute of Medical Sciences in the state capital, Hyderabad, for further treatment.
Four people have been arrested in connection with the assault: Bandi Venkatesh and his wife, the victim’s sister, and her spouse.
According to sources, the conflict arose over money borrowed from Bandi Venkatesh.
In exchange, she agreed to work on his farm. However, after a dispute with her sister, who also worked on the farm, the woman left after a few days.
An furious Venkatesh pursued her and dragged her back to his property.
Telangana Deputy Chief Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka visited with the young woman, who was admitted to a government hospital, on Monday and stated that the Congress government would pay for all expenditures.
Mr Vikramarka further stated that the state government will offer the woman a home if she does not already own one, as well as education for her children and farmland. On Saturday, Excise Minister Jupally Krishna Rao promised the woman ₹ 2 lakh in financial support.
