A long road to justice Premium

The tragic incident of police firing on Gond tribals in Indervelli village still haunts the community after 43 years.

People’s heroes are immortals,” reads the first sentence engraved in blood red on the white plaque of the lofty martyrs’ memorial column. The sentiment is echoed in Telugu and Hindi translations. It further reads, “Those mountains red and the flowers red; Oh! Their death red and our homage red.” This column at Indervelli village of Adilabad district, nearly 300 kilometres north of Hyderabad, in Telangana, holds profound significance for the Gonds, a tribal community.

Nearly 43 years ago, on April 20, 1981, several Gond people died and many sustained grievous injuries when police opened fire at them at Indervelli. There are conflicting numbers of death and injuries; while the government says 13 tribals were killed, members of rights organisations put the figure at 60.

Discrepancies also persist regarding the reason behind the firing. Some claim that the police resorted to firing at unarmed Gond tribals following a dispute over their participation in a meeting convened by the Andhra Pradesh Rythu Coolie Sangham (RCS), a farmer organisation affiliated to Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist People’s War Group of naxalites (PWG and its frontal organisations, including RCS, were banned by the A.P. government in 1992. The ban was relaxed for 18 months in 1995 and reimposed in 1996). The police, for their part, contended that they were compelled to open fire after a tribal woman allegedly attacked a constable with a spear.

Despite the passage of over four decades since the tragic incident, the wounds of that day still run deep within the Gond families, as they grapple with the challenges of making ends meet, haunted by the memories of the violence that altered their lives. For many, little has changed in terms of earnings, dwellings, or the overall quality of life. The pain of loss is compounded by the socio-economic exploitation they continue to face from various quarters. The martyrs’ memorial column, standing as a symbol of bravery and sacrifice for the Gonds, now serves as a painful reminder of the justice that has eluded them for decades. 

Septuagenarian Jangu Bai, who resides in Kannapur village of Sirkonda mandal, 13 km from Indervelli, cannot recall in detail the happenings on that fateful day. “I had gone to the weekly market with my husband, Madavi Sambu, on a Monday. During the police firing, a bullet hit my right arm. He too suffered a bullet injury on his hand. We were bleeding severely,” she says. She was rushed to Hyderabad for treatment while Sambu was admitted to a local hospital, where he succumbed to the injury.

“Though my injury healed within a few months, I am unable to use my right arm fully,” says Jangu Bai, who lives with her daughter-in-law and grandchildren in a two-room house with a thatched roof. Her two daughters are married while her son died of an ailment.

Equally heart-wrenching is the story of Lachchu Bai, a sexagenarian, living in Thatiguda village of Indervelli mandal. Her husband Sedmaki Koddu, an agricultural labourer, went to the weekly market on April 20, 1981. She does not remember if he went to attend the Gond tribal meeting or to buy vegetables, but Koddu never returned home. She was told that he was killed in the police firing. With the help of neighbours, she went to Indervelli to trace Koddu’s body.