The Laxmipeta massacre

Laxmipeta lies in Vangara mandal, a sub-district, of Srikakulam district, in the north of Andhra Pradesh.¹ It was one of 21 villages whose land, 7,852 acres in all, the state took for the Madduvalasa reservoir. The old village was flooded, and when the project was finished in 2002 its families moved to a new settlement by the reservoir: 124 Turpu Kapu families, 16 of other castes and 60 Dalit families, The Wire reported.³

The Turpu Kapus, a caste counted among the Other Backward Classes, the castes the state lists as neither upper caste nor Dalit, had owned most of the old village's 450 acres. The Dalits, who are Malas, one of the main Dalit communities of Andhra Pradesh, owned none and worked as farm labourers, so they received no compensation or resettlement package.³ In the new village, Dalits and Turpu Kapus lived side by side for the first time, which The Wire's writer, Suman Damera, says unsettled the old practice of untouchability.³

Sixty acres

The height of the reservoir was cut by two feet, and 250 acres of the land taken for it were not needed. Turpu Kapus farmed 190 of them, and Dalits 60, The Wire reported. The Turpu Kapus said the 60 acres were theirs by right, since they had belonged to men of their caste from a neighbouring village, and warned the Dalits to give them up.³

The press reported that both sides claimed the leftover land, and that the district administration's attempts to settle it had failed.² The Human Rights Forum, a civil-liberties group that visited after the attack, said the officials had failed either to settle the land question or to protect the Dalits, and that it believed the Dalits' claim was just.¹

A Dalit woman had also been elected sarpanch, the head of the village council, unopposed. An unopposed election brought Rs 5 lakh (about US$9,400 at 2012 rates) for the village's development, and she released funds for drinking water, roads and drains in the Dalit colony. Damera writes that this too was seen as a threat to the Turpu Kapus' dominance.³ In the months before the attack, both sides filed police complaints against each other, and the authorities warned against violence.³

The morning of 12 June

This section describes the attack and the deaths.

A police picket had been posted in the village to prevent violence, but several of its men had been sent to by-election duty in Narasannapeta, the press reported.² At about seven in the morning of 12 June 2012, as the village prepared for the monsoon sowing, a mob of nearly a hundred men came into the Dalit quarter.^1,3

They carried crude bombs, hatchets, axes and sickles, the Human Rights Forum's team was told; The Wire lists sticks, spears, knives, stones and chilli powder too.^1,3 They dragged Dalit men out of their homes and abused the men and women by their caste name.¹ Three men died where they fell, and a fourth on the way to hospital in Rajam, the Forum's team was told.¹ The police arrived two and a half hours after the attack began.²

Bodduru Papayya died of his injuries five days later, in hospital in Visakhapatnam.¹ The Forum's team counted more than 25 Dalits hurt, about half of them seriously, on 17 June.¹ The Vangara police station, four kilometres away, was on the state's list of areas prone to atrocities against Dalits.¹

The Human Rights Forum's team recorded the names of the five dead from their families: Nivarthi Sangamesu, Chittiri Appadu, Nivarti Venkati, Burada Sundara Rao and Bodduru Papayya, all men, aged 30 to 51.¹

After the killings

The state government ordered an inquiry under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and announced Rs 2 lakh (about US$3,700 at 2012 rates) for each bereaved family.² The chief minister, N. Kiran Kumar Reddy, flew to Rajam to meet the survivors in hospital.³

The Dalits named 66 people as attackers; by 17 June, five days after the attack, ten had been arrested, the Forum reported.¹ The Human Rights Forum said the administration had not used the powers the Act gives it to act against people before an atrocity happens, and asked the police to finish their investigation within the 30 days the law allows.¹ Dalit organisations held rallies in Rajam and Vangara, and protests across the state demanded the arrest of all those named, the press reported.^2,3

The survivors refused the government's help and compensation until their demands were met, The Wire reported.³

In their words

What the survivors said, as The Wire recorded it.

When the chief minister and officials announced compensation, the survivors of Laxmipeta shouted back, The Wire's Suman Damera reported: "We want self-respect, dignity and protection, not money or jobs."³

Survivors and civil-society groups told Damera, during his field study, that the police had an understanding with the attackers, and that the police picket was taken out of the village before the attack. It is their allegation; no court has ruled on it.³

A court in the village

The state set up a fast-track court in Laxmipeta itself in 2012, to give judgment within six months.³ Twelve years later, in June 2024, it had given none.³

By then, The Wire reported, the promised ex-gratia, the one-off payment the government gives to victims' families, had not reached them. Turpu Kapus held most of the land and kept Dalits from daily-wage work on it, and many Malas had left for other villages and towns.³

What is still unknown

We have not found whether the court has given judgment since June 2024. We name none of the accused, because no court has ruled.³ Four reports and statements by Round Table India, from 2012, are part of this record, but their site was under maintenance when we drafted this account, and we could not read them.^4,5,6,7

The sources differ on the time of the attack: 7.10 in the morning by the Human Rights Forum, 8 by The Hindu. They differ on the number injured: 25 in The Hindu on 13 June 2012, more than 25 in the Forum's statement four days later, more than 40 in The Wire in 2024. We have not found what the later figure rests on.^1,2,3