Eramangalathu Chitralekha
On October 21st I was attacked again. This time they rounded up and beat my husband Sreeskanth because now they are scared to touch me.
Sreeskanth has been living a life of social exclusion for a long time now. His relatives have abandoned him, his friends don’t talk to him, except very secretly, and no one in the auto stand also talks to him. But they keep taunting him saying that he is under a Pulachi (Pulaya/Dalit woman) and is a good for nothing. But he bears it all silently. After my auto was burned there was an attack on his life. At that time they mistook my brother-in-law for him and he was stabbed on his back very badly and only escaped death very narrowly. Then we had to run away from our house. Later we came back and we started driving our auto in Edattu.
After I was beaten up in the mob attack on May 18th, which I had written about earlier, my legs have swollen up and am unable to drive the auto regularly. So recently Sreeskanth was driving the auto and was earning some money. I, in the mean time, was trying to fight the many cases.
On October 21 st they started taunting him again as usual and as usual he just bore it without saying anything. Then all of them including Rameshan who is one of the culprits in the case for burning my auto, started beating him up. Sreeskanth is all alone in the auto stand, and no one supports him or even talks to him. So very quickly they outnumbered him and beat him down. They also took his money and his mobile, which has all our numbers and with which we contact everybody when in trouble.
Sreeskanth somehow escaped the place and ran to the police station and lodged a complaint and also went to the hospital as he was bleeding. I also went with him.
However, by then as usual the CITU made a false story. They hospitalized an old man in the auto stand, one Mr Krishnan, (65 years) and said that Sreeskanth had beaten him up. How can one man like Sreeskanth beat up such an old man, with all his numerous and powerful friends looking on? They also called a Harthal in Kannur and picketed the police station.
When they burned my auto in 2005 also they had done a Harthal like this. At that time they accused me and my husband of burning the auto ourselves to blame the CITU and put them in trouble. Now they are saying that my husband has stood one against 10 or more CITU auto drivers and beat up one of their friends!
We also heard that the CI Abdul Rahman has told the CITU to go ahead and do whatever they want to do with my husband and family. It seems they were told that they can beat us or kill us and the police wont interfere! After hearing this, my husband stopped going to work. The money we have earned also is in their hands, including my mobile.
This CI Abdul Rahman has recently arrested an SFI leader who was involved in the TP Chandrashekaran case. But after that he was badly threatened by the CPM and now he is under their control. Yesterday, I went before the Legislative Committee for SC/ST welfare and talked about these recent developments. Dalit activist P K Ayyappan who has been with us from the beginning of my problems, also came with us.
I have also contacted all the newspapers (Maadhyamam, Thejas, Mathrabhumi, Malayalam Manorama) and also some newschannels. They have all published my version, whereas the CPM mouth piece Deshabhimani came up with the CITU’s fake stories. We are being asked why we are being attacked again and again.
Even in the Legislative Committee, we were asked why only we are being attacked again and again. People who are asking this don’t know anything about what is happening in Kannur and how the CPM has everyone and everything there under control. Even when we don’t do anything the CITU waits for a chance to pounce on us. We have to keep fighting; we don’t know what else to do.
Please also read her earlier statement on another recent attack on her on May 18th, 2013.
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