Paranthayi’s toothless slur fumbles, but her memory holds steady, revisiting the horrors of those fateful days of June 20 and its immediate aftermath in 1992, when a little known tribal hamlet of Vachathi in Dharmapuri was forced into the registry of the country’s chequered history of State violence.
This village of ‘Malayali’ (hill) tribes was besieged by a contingent of forest, revenue, and police personnel, in what was an ostensible raid against sandalwood logging, an accusation denied by the landless inhabitants. But, what followed was a three-day rampage that led to the brutalisation of 18 young girls, some of them children; destruction of homes; pillaging of livestock; and beaten bodies, according to the testimonies after the Central Bureau of Investigating (CBI) took over the investigation of the case.
On Friday, when the Madras High Court delivers its verdict on appeal petitions, it would be exactly 12 years to date from the last verdict on September 29, 2011, by a sessions court, which convicted all 269 accused personnel. Among them, 17 were also convicted on the charge of rape. The surviving 217 officials were sentenced to jail for impunity of State violence.
