21 Cops Acquitted In Tribal Women Gangrape Case: 7 Things To Know

A Special Court in the state's Alluri Sitarama Raju district convicted 21 police officers accused of gang-raping 11 Kondh indigenous women in a village 16 years ago. The court decided that the accused were acquitted primarily because the two police investigators failed to conduct a fair and unbiased investigation.

In August 2007, eleven tribal women from Vakapalli village in Nurmati Panchayat of G Madugula Mandal, about 650 kilometers from Hyderabad, claimed that 21 policemen from a 30-member Andhra Pradesh Police Special Party who had visited their village for anti-Naxal combing operations raped them at gunpoint. Here are 7 things to know about the case.

21 Cops Acquitted In Gangrape Case

1. The women claimed that the police force raided the village just as the men were leaving to work in the fields, raped them, and forcibly took them into huts. The women protested to the men when they returned in the afternoon.

- They informed their sarpanch, who notified then-BSP MLA L Raja Rao. The MLA and tribals took the women to the deputy collector, who then requested that a FIR be filed. A complaint was made under Indian Criminal Code Section 376 (2)(g) and the SC & ST (PoA) Act, 1989, Section 3(2)(v).

- According to M. Sarat, vice president of the HRF-Andhra Pradesh State Committee, a police report was filed against them, but not a single accused person was detained. According to reports, some of them went on to successfully retire, while others died.

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- According to the forum, the investigation into the two accused cops was contaminated from the start and carried out with the goal of protecting them, breaching processes prescribed by the criminal code, while forensic medical examinations were tainted.

- The judge chastised the investigating officer, M. Sivananda Reddy, for conducting a poor probe and ordered the state government to form an apex committee to investigate the officer. The court ruled that because the other investigating officer, B. Ananda Rao, is no longer alive, no action should be taken against him.

- The trial began in Visakhapatnam in 2018 and ended on Thursday with the XI Additional District and Sessions Judge-cum-Special Court under the SC & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act acquitting the cops due to a fake probe.

- In the meantime, the court ordered that rape survivors be paid through the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA).