June 9 was a day like any other when 20-year-old Manoj* reached the private firm in Hosur he works at. But his day quickly went downhill, when a team of police officers from Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor, located about 200 km away, turned up and accused him of a jewellery theft that had occurred in Chittoor six months earlier. “They alleged that I had stolen the jewels in Chittoor with my family and relatives,” Manoj said. The police took him to Puthalapattu in Chittoor district, where he was interrogated and tortured about the missing gold. This was just the beginning of the nightmare for Manoj and his family.
Over the next four days, seven of Manoj’s relatives from Puliyandapatti in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri district, including women and children, were detained by the Chittoor police. Two days before arresting Manoj, the police came to pick up two people – a mother and her minor child – from Kalaburagi simply because Manoj’s family knew her. All of them belong to the tribal Kuravan community. Getting picked up by the police for crimes they had no connection with was not new, but what transpired in Chittoor has left the community shaken.
Among the 10 detainees were five women and two children. The police recorded the arrest only on June 16, a good seven days after the arrests began and even then only two of the 10 were recorded as arrested. That was the day the police released eight of them because of the pressure brought about by political parties and Kuravan organisations from Tamil Nadu. The two remaining, Gowri and Muthukumar, were sent to prison for the alleged theft case against them.
TNM visited Puliyandapatti to speak to the two families targeted by the Andhra police. Gowri, who has been out on bail for a month, is grappling with constant anxiety. “The police beat us. Two of us were sexually assaulted by the police. Our men were stripped naked. We were lifted using a rope and hung a few feet above the floor. Our bodies were covered with chilli powder. The torture that was meted out to women was no less than the torture faced by the men,” she alleged. Apart from Gowri, Muthukumar’s wife Ananthi, who was also detained, has accused the police of sexual assault.
Their ordeal did not end after being released. Back in Tamil Nadu, the day after their release the women faced invasive questions at the Krishnagiri Government College Hospital. The staff members who examined them were dismissive of their complaints of rape and allegedly subjected them to the prohibited two-finger test.
The ostensible logic of the police in targeting the Kuravan families was the recovery of 232 gm of gold missing from the home of a Mandal Education Officer from Chittoor district in January 2023.
The Kuravan community is categorised as a Scheduled Caste (SC) in Tamil Nadu. Twenty-three other Koravar communities are categorised as Denotified Communities (DNC) under the Most Backward Class (MBC). Koravars (pronounced Kuravars, Koravans, Kuravars, Koravans) were seen as criminal tribes in the colonial period. Many Kuravans do not like to reveal their caste identity. In the last three decades, people from this community have migrated as they were frequently subjected to police interrogation, arrests, and custodial torture on concocted charges.
Settled in the northwestern parts of Tamil Nadu such as Thirupathur, Vellore, Krishnagiri, and Dharmapuri, the continued profiling of the tribe as criminals and their caste identity has led to constant harassment from law enforcement agencies. Puliyandapatti village was once inhabited by 150 Kuravan households. Now, only three families remain.
“The police used casteist slurs. We were insulted at the hospital when we needed medical assistance. All because they firmly believe we will always be the same, no matter how much education we get or how much better we are doing. It could be why the government abandoned us when we sought justice,” Gowri said. Cases have been registered in both AP and TN for alleged rape and wrongful detention. But, no action has been taken on these complaints.
Manoj alleges that the police brought him to Puthalapattu in Chittoor, took him to what looked like a police training centre, strung him up and started thrashing him. “They alleged I had stolen 4 kg of gold with the help of my relatives. They intended to point to a bunch of people as thieves and recover the gold from local, small-scale jewellery shops by threatening the owners,” he alleged.
Over two days, they hit him repeatedly with PVC pipes, Manoj alleged. “The police would spread my legs and someone would stand on each leg for 20 to 30 minutes. They pulled me up with rope and hung me a few feet from the floor for 30 minutes every two hours,” Manoj recalled. They wanted him to admit he and his uncle Muthukumar were habitual jewellery thieves. Unable to bear the torture, he gave his uncle’s details, after which the police picked up Muthukumar, his family, and Manoj’s family.
According to Muthukumar’s wife, Ananthi, the police rounded them up at 8 pm on June 11, covered their faces with black polythene bags, slapped them and loaded them in a van. When Manoj’s mother heard of the arrest, she made an online complaint. But she too was arrested by the police the next day. According to her, the police covered their faces with plastic bags and beat them. They also removed the disk containing the footage from the CCTV installed in front of her house. “When my family members were being arrested, I was in the van with my mouth gagged with cloth and my hands tied,” Manoj told TNM.
Gowri recalled that the police made sure they beat them in such a way there were no visible marks on the skin. “First they wrapped my hands with a towel and tied it with ropes. They pulled the rope over a pole and tied it to the window. We were hung in the air for 30 minutes to one hour. Then they thrashed us with lathis,” Gowri alleged.
Manoj alleged that the Chittoor police also stripped him naked and applied chilli powder on his genitals during the interrogation. Ananthi said she witnessed the same treatment to Muthukumar.
"While I was sexually assaulted, a policewoman just stood outside the room and did nothing," Gowri alleged.
Gowri, who belongs to the Mudaliar community, married a man from the Kuravan community against her parents’ wishes a decade ago. “They asked why I married a Kuravan man and how I found him charming. The policeman who raped me even told me to leave my kids and husband and have a relationship with him,” Gowri said.
It was after Gowri was released on bail that she met Ananthi and realised that both were subjected to sexual assault during their illegal confinement. “We don’t know the policeman, but he spoke Tamil fluently. We are confident about identifying him,” said Gowri.
On two different days, Manoj and Gowri were taken to various medium-sized gold jewellery shops in Uthangarai, Kallavi of Tamil Nadu, and Jigani in Karnataka’s Bengaluru and forced to confess that they had sold the stolen gold ornaments at these shops. “The police negotiated with the shop owners to extort 100 to 200 sovereigns of gold from each shop,” Manoj alleged.
The TN police registered a case for wrongful detention and assault, among other sections, on June 18 after the Tamil Pazhangudi Kuravan Sangam (TAKS), a Kuravan community association, pressured them. On June 15, TAKS members and CPI(M) lawyers met the detainees at the Puthalapattu police station.
Meanwhile, Manoj’s mother said she was coerced into withdrawing her complaint. Fearing more police violence, she complied. On June 16, eight of them, including two children, were presented before the police and revenue officials in Krishnagiri. Gowri and Muthukumar were sent to judicial custody for their alleged role in the theft. “The police did not want us to make an issue out of it. They also forced us to tell others that we were on a tour to Andhra Pradesh,” the detainees said.
TAKS members and detainees have many questions. Did the police have a warrant? How and when did this incident reach the Tamil Nadu police’s attention? Is there a tacit understanding between the police personnel of the two states in this matter? Will the police personnel of either state ever stop stigmatising people from the Kuravan community as a criminal tribe?
TAKS’s general secretary, G Ravi, contended that, unlike other communities, the trauma of harassment, assault, and custodial torture is borne by every member of the Kuravan families. “Usually, police don’t bring the entire family of a history-sheeter to the station. But, it happens when the suspect is from the Kuravan community,” he said.
Ravi alleged that Uthangarai DSP Parthiban pressured Manoj’s mother to withdraw the online complaint she had registered on June 12. “They deliberately made us wait without registering our complaint,” he recalled.
DSP Parthiban dismissed the allegations by TAKS. He told TNM, “We registered an FIR the same day they filed the complaint with us (June 13) under the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989 (SC/ST POA) and appropriate sections for illegal custody.”
Around 11 pm on June 16, the two Kuravan family members reached their respective houses in Puliyandapatti, but their ordeal hadn’t ended. When they visited the Krishnagiri Medical College Hospital for a medical examination the next day, they were refused admission. “We had to fight with the hospital staff members to get them admitted. The staff told us that medical assistance was unnecessary,” Ravi said.
“I was in pain due to the physical torture. I told the doctors that I was subjected to sexual assault,” Ananthi said, adding that she was questioned about her marital status. “I told them that I’m married and have a son. They asked me how could they prove I was raped as I was married and had a child. What proof were they expecting from me?” she asked. According to Ananthi, she was subjected to the two-fingers test. Two weeks later, when Gowri went for an examination, she too was allegedly subjected to the two-fingers test.
When TNM contacted Poovathi, Krishnagiri Medical College Hospital Dean, she said that the examination reports of Ananthi and Gowri “showed no signs of rape”. She refused to comment on the two-finger test allegation. Krishnagiri District Collector KM Sarayu dismissed allegations of the two-fingers test and said that an investigation was underway in the illegal detention case.
On June 19, Ananthi filed a complaint against Hari Prasad, an SI ranking police officer, Thanik, and other police personnel at the Chittoor Town II police station over alleged sexual assault and custodial torture. According to The Hans India, based on the statement given by detainees at the hospital, a case was registered and the six accused police were transferred.
Superintendent of Police (SP) of Chittoor, Y Rishanth Reddy, told TNM that the main accused, Muthukumar and Gowri, and others were arrested on property theft charges. He said, “The five women and their children were released after they were produced before a magistrate. They did complain about custodial torture and sexual assault at that point. When a revenue officer from Krishnagiri examined them, the women did not complain. We have filed an FIR based on their complaint. We have also sought medical reports for them.” He maintained that all of them were taken into custody only on June 15, and stolen property was recovered from them. The detainees alleged that their gold jewellery was produced in court as recovered stolen property. They also alleged their new mobile phones and the gold and silver ornaments worn by the women were confiscated by the police and not returned.
The road to proving the charges of torture and sexual assault is tough for the detainees. TNM accessed the discharge summaries of those admitted to the Krishnagiri Government Medical College Hospital. The report indicated only contusions on the thigh and soft tissue injuries. Aseervatham, the state coordinator of People’s Watch, explained that police torture methods often cannot be detected during a medical examination. “In this case, the women were examined several days after they were sexually assaulted, and one of the survivors mentioned that the police officer had used a condom,” he noted. Wrapping towels around the victims’ hands also do not leave any visible marks on the skin. Important details of injuries often go unnoticed due to these clever strategies planned by the police, he said.
Tired of the inaction, the detainees met TN Director General of Police Shankar Jiwal on July 21. They now want the case transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
* All names changed to protect identities
With inputs from Bhavani Etikala from Andhra Pradesh