First anniversary of Dalit massacre at Lakshimpet

* Provide employment to us, say Dalits * We want the same land not anywhere else

Srikakulam: It has been one year since the attack on Dalits of Lakshmipet in which five were killed and twenty sustained serious injuries. The victims allege that there was no help from the government to bring back their lives to normalcy though there were promises and promises.

The Dalits of Lakshmipet who have been cultivating the surplus land in the limits of Madduvalasa project were attacked by the persons belonging to backward classes using country-made bombs and lethal weapons. All political parties and people's organizations condemned the attack and demanded stern action against the accused. Subsequently, police arrested 93 persons holding them responsible for the attack and Botcha Vasudeva Naidu and Avu Srinivasa Rao were the accused one and two respectively.

It has been alleged that PCC chief Botcha Satyanarayana and Minister Kondru Murali were protecting the accused. The government paid Rs. 3. 75 lakh compensation to the kin of the deceased while the Ambedkar Foundation on behalf of the Central government paid Rs. 5 lakh. The kin of the deceased were given government jobs.

The demands of the Dalits that the sitting High Court judge should inquire into the attack, the whole village should be considered as victim, five acres of land to the agriculture labourers were not met. The Dalits demand that the same land should be allotted to them for which they laid their lives instead of giving land somewhere else. They said that they lost their livelihood as the BC families were not offering farm work to them. They demanded employment to all the Dalits of the village.