No water, no medicine: Dalits face social boycott from upper caste Hindus

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April 26, 2017

Prakasam, Apr 26: Gonugunta, a small village in Prakasam district of coastal Andhra is in the news for reasons not so encouraging. Dozens of Dalits in the village are facing social boycott from upper caste Hindus.

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Trouble began after the upper caste Hindus excluded two Dalit hamlets attached to the main village from the “Bottu Rayi” installation function on April 21. Now the Daits are denied access to water, medicines, groceries and other essential commodities.

The poor Dalits allegedly incurred the wrath of the upper caste Hindus after they objected to fixing the village boundaries excluding the two Dalit hamlets. Consecration of “'Bottu Rayi”(sanctified stone) is a Dravidian practice to ward off evil forces and ensure prosperity of residents of the village. Eight stones are also placed in eight different directions as advised by Vasthu experts to fix the village boundary.

“We are also born and brought up in the village, but are not treated as part and parcel of the village now. Even dogs are allowed to roam freely in the village. But we are disallowed for questioning them. We are not allowed to board the auto-rickshaws plied by “caste” Hindus, who have stopped talking to us now,” said a group of Dalits.

“They do not sell milk to us any longer,” complained K. Kalyan, on whose complaint the Chimakurthy police registered a case under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.

They now have no option but to go all the way to Chimakurthy or K.V. Palem to purchase essential commodities, added sarpanch K. Venkaiamma, also a Dalit.

“We are also not allowed to work in the farms of upper caste people,” complains a Dalit youth Vinod, getting ready to move out to Hyderabad where his friends eke out a living doing sundry jobs.

Only in 2008, the Dalits were allowed entry into the temple after the Kula Vivaksha Porata Sangam (KVPS) took up their cause.

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News Network
May 14,2024

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Mangaluru, May 14: The Met department has sounded a yellow alert in 13 districts of Karnataka including the three coastal districts of Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Uttara Kannada for next four days. 

The other districts are Belagavi, Dharwad, Haveri, Chikkamagalur, Chitradurga, Hassan, Kodagu, Mandya, Ramanagara, Shivamogga. These districts are expected to received 6-11 cm of rain, the department said.

On Monday Dakshina Kannada and Udupi experienced a monsoon-like atmosphere. Rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, began in most parts on Sunday evening. In Udupi, rain showered in the early hours of Monday. While Kundapur and Udupi received moderate rains, Karkala experienced a heavy downpour.

The showers lowered the daytime temperature in both districts. Light rain fell in Mangaluru and its outskirts early Monday morning. Mangaluru city recorded a maximum temperature of 33.4°C and a minimum of 23.2°C on Monday. This is expected to decrease by two to four degrees in the next four days, according to the weather department. 

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News Network
May 10,2024

Mangaluru: A teenage boy from a remote village in Dakshina Kannada district, who was undergoing treatment for stomach pain for past few days, breathed his last after hospitalization. 

The deceased has been identified as Nithin Kumar, 19, who had completed PUC and was attending computer classes. 

According to police, on May 4, when he informed his family that he had been suffering from a stomach-ache for the past 4-5 days, his family members took him to a clinic in Kaniyoor.

The doctors who examined him advised him to undergo scanning. He was informed about a kidney stone and later, they returned home. That same night, he suffered from stomach-ache again and was rushed to a private hospital in Puttur.

On May 7, as per doctors’ advice, he was discharged around 12:45pm. However, when he came home around 2:30pm, he again suffered from stomach-ache and was taken to another private hospital in Puttur, where doctors conducted a surgery.

On Wednesday, as per doctors’ advice, he was asked to be shifted to Mangaluru for better treatment.

He visited a private hospital in Derakatte, where doctors suggested that he be shifted to government Wenlock Hospital.

The doctors who examined him at the Wenlock Hospital declared him dead. A case has been registered at the Bellare police station, and an investigation is on.

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News Network
May 17,2024

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Hubballi, May 17: Karnataka Police have arrested the killer, Vishwa, also known as Girish, in the sensational Anjali Ambigera murder case, police said on Friday.

Preliminary investigations reveal that Vishwa was a habitual thief who exploited innocent young women. The accused is also a drunkard and was caught while attempting to commit theft. He was also part of a gang which stole bikes.

The accused targeted gullible young women, enacting a drama of love and playing the emotional card to forcefully extort gold, silver, and cash from them. When Anjali did not agree to any of his attempts to rob her and outrightly rejected his offer to go with him to Mysuru city, he brutally killed her.

The police had formed two teams to hunt down the killer. One of the teams was searching in the south Karnataka region, and another team, which launched a hunt in Davanagere, nabbed him. The accused was arrested by the police on Thursday.

The police could not catch him sooner as the killer did not carry a mobile phone and did not use his phone for 15 days, before murdering Anjali. The jurisdictional Bendigeri Police were aware of the killer's history, but even after the complaint by the girl’s family, they showed "utter negligence".

The 24-year-old Vishwa entered Anjali Ambigera's (20) residence at 5.30 A.M. on Wednesday and stabbed the young woman multiple times before she could react. Vishwa dragged Anjali Ambigera all over the house, kicking and stabbing her. Later, he pushed her into the kitchen where he stabbed her repeatedly.

Despite efforts by Anjali’s grandmother and two sisters to stop the attacker, he killed her and managed to flee. The incident occurred in the Veerapura Oni area within the jurisdiction of the Bendigeri Police Station.

Vishwa had been blackmailing Anjali and pressurising her to accompany him to Mysuru without informing her parents. The incident which took place close on the heels of MCA student Neha Hiremath’s brutal murder by the jilted lover has raised concern over the safety of women all across the state.

The BJP had demanded the resignation of Home Minister G. Parameshwara while the Congress leaders have also demanded that the Hubballi-Dharwad Police Commissioner Renuka Sukumar should be transferred for failing to sensitise the police force regarding issues of women’s safety.

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