Mob torches Sarpanch’s house

Siddipet : Ibrahimpur village in Siddipet mandal, which garnered attention nationwide for its cleanliness, sanitation and green initiatives, has become a stage for violence and riot since Thursday night.

It all started on Thursday night, when Srihari (30), a sresident of Jillella village in Sircilla Mandal in Karimnagar district, who is the Munim for beedis (a person who is in-charge of collecting beedis from workers in the villages), accidentally hit Lakshmi (60), the Sarpanch of Ibrahimpur with his motorbike.

Infuriated over the negligent driving of Srihari, Yella Reddy, the son of Sarpanch, along with his brother summoned Srihari to the Hanuman temple in the village and allegedly beat him black and blue.

Srihari went home along with his friend who was pillion-riding his bike and was also an eye-witness to the incident. However, Srihari succumbed to injuries in the wee hours of Friday.

Around 10 villagers from Jillella village reached Ibrahimpur on Friday morning to talk to the Sarpanch. Heated arguments took place between the Sarpanch’s sons and the villagers of Jillella. After a couple of hours, about 200 angry villagers, mostly beedi workers, relatives and sympathisers of Srihari came from Jillella and Terulamaddi villages along with Srihari’s dead body and sat in front of Lakshmi’s house.

According to the sources, the police tried to shoo away the angry mob and asked them to take the body away. What happened then was a violent outburst from the villagers who attacked Lakshmi indiscriminately in her house. According to sources, there were around 3-5 constables along with Siddipet Rural SI Rajendra Prasad who reached the spot only to incur mob’s wrath..

The policemen were also attacked. Nagaraju, a journalist of NTV was also beaten up severely by the angry mob when he tried to film the violence. The mob set Lakshmi’s house on fire, resulting in bursting of the cylinders in her kitchen, destroying the entire house and partially destroying two neighbouring houses.

Additional reinforcements were called in and officers from various police stations reached the spot and quelled the mob. Fifteen persons were into custody. Sarpanch Lakshmi was rushed to a hospital in Hyderabad and journalist Nagaraju was taken to Siddipet for treatment.

Both were said to have received severe injuries. Medak and Karimnagar SPs and DIG Naveen Chand reached the spot. There was a curfew-like situation in the village by noon. The situation returned to normalcy by evening. No details of any cases being booked were revealed by the police yet.