The Vakapalli gangrape verdict “once again exposed the state’s class bias,” stated Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoists) Ganesh in a statement on Tuesday.
On April 6, a special court in Vishakhapatnam acquitted all 13 police officers charged in the Vakapalli gangrape case. In 2007, 11 Adivasi women from the Kondh community were allegedly gang-raped in a village in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district. “It’s been 16 years since Greyhound (a special anti-Naxal police force) gang-raped 11 tribal women in Vakapalli.” The incident occurred on August 21, 2007. One of the members of the inquiry commission assigned to investigate the incident died.
Another was unable to provide a proper investigation report. As a result, the court ruled that the officers who committed the rape were not guilty. “The state has once again exposed its class nature through this judgment,” Ganesh said in a statement released on Tuesday.
He further said in the statement, “It has been proven once again that under this system, poor tribals, particularly women, cannot get justice.”
Ganesh also called for a Maoist protest against the court’s decision in the statement.
The court emphasized the failure of the investigating authorities to conduct a fair and unbiased inquiry in its ruling, acquitting all of the accused in the case.
