VILLUPURAM: A Dalit man, who was repeatedly abused by his landlord and later beaten up by the Thiruvennainallur police, lodged a complaint with the Villupuram DIG office on Saturday, demanding action.
According to sources, Ravichandran (46), a Dalit farm labourer, is living with his wife Vijayakumari (40) and two daughters Ranjana Devi (22) and Abinaya (19) in a rented tile-roof house.They had paid an advance of Rs 25,000 with an agreement of paying Rs 1,500 each month as rent.
House-owner Gandhiraj (70), is a caste Hindu retired teacher.
During the floods, the family was unable to pay their rent for two months. Though they began paying the rent as usual from January, they were unable to pay the two-month arrears.
On February 14, Ravichandran was hauled up by the Thiruvennainallur police on a false complaint saying they hadn’t paid rent for a year, pegging arrears at Rs 15,000.
The station SSI Kolangiappan, allegedly a close friend of Gandhiraj, brutally beat him up and obtained signatures on blank papers.
Humiliated by this, the couple decided to vacate the house and asked the landlord to give back the advance after deducting the arrears.
Gandhiraj then showed them papers with Ravichandran’s signature, which stated that the rent arrear was Rs 15,000, and said that he would only give back Rs 10,000. He further said he would deduct money for repairing the house, from the remaining Rs 10,000.
Acting on the complaint, DIG Anusiya Hussain appointed a special team to investigate the matter.