Dandupalya
| Dandupalya | |
|---|---|
| village | |
| Country |
 India |
| State | Karnataka |
| Languages | |
| • Official | Kannada |
| Time zone | IST (UTC+5:30) |
Dandupalya is a small village situated near Bangalore on the Old Madras Road(NH4). The village lies to the left as you drive from Hoskote towards Bangalore.
Demography
The village is mainly populated by Dalits, with small numbers of people from other different communities. The main occupation of majority of villagers is agriculture. For over a decade, the village of Dandupalya has been subjected to a terrible calumny. Located off Old Madras Road in Hoskote taluk, an hour’s drive from Bangalore, the settlement of about 400 families became Karnataka’s cradle of infamy at the turn of the century when over a dozen members of an extended family, some of them settled in the village and hence known as the Dandupalya gang, began killing and looting at will. The gang, descendants of migrants from Andhra Pradesh in the 1930s or ’40s, is believed to have killed over 80 people across south India in a span of three-to-four years. Most active between 1996 and 2001, the gang comprised about 30 people, both men and women
Dandupalya was never the dacoits’ hive of operation—they would carefully target women who were alone at their homes in Bangalore, Mysore, Hubli or Mangalore—but their connection to the village was enough to set off a media frenzy that consumed its reputation and destroyed any hope of a normal life. Sixteen death sentences have since been awarded to 11 members of the gang, four have received life sentences, a dozen have been sentenced to several years in prison. The last of the judgments came from a special sessions court in January this year, sentencing five to the gallows for a double murder in Mangalore in 1997.
The 4,000-plus residents of Dandupalya, most of them of the Kuruva (cattle-rearers) caste and other scheduled castes, still cannot dissociate themselves enough from the trail of blood or convince the world of their innocence. They have since become wary of outsiders, as outsiders have become of them. In the face of obvious affronts—buses to Dandupalya, for instance, do not bear its name for fear of alarming passengers—they have led a lonely struggle.
The Dandupalya Gang
The village gained prominence between 1999 and 2001 when some villagers started committing crimes like robbery, dacoity and murders in neighboring towns, especially in Bangalore. The gang consisted of men, women and children. The main tactic of the gang was to zero in on a house and watch the activities of the members of the household. The gang would find the time of day when few people were in the targeted household and kill the people by slitting their throats. The primary motive was the money and other valuables. The slitting of throats of their victims became a mark of the Dandupalya gang and about 500 murders and the same number dacoities were committed by the gang. The Bangalore police had to set up a special branch to deal with the gang.
Conviction
The core members of the gang were arrested and were sentenced to Death for their crimes. In all, 11 members of the gang are facing death sentences and 15 of the cases in which the death sentence was pronounced, are pending appeal in the high court. Special judge H R Srinivas acquitted two of the gang members.
In the 16 cases, 11 of the gang members were awarded death sentences, two are absconding, one member died during the course of trial and two were acquitted. Of the 50-odd cases in which the gang was allegedly involved, two more cases are pending trial in Kasaragod, Kerala, and Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh. During the trial, the gang threatened the public prosecutor and even the judge hearing the case twice, records state.
Jan 20, 2012 The special court hearing the Dandupalya gang cases on Wednesday pronounced the death sentence to five of its members. In a first of its kind in the history of criminal cases, the 34th additional city civil and sessions court is a special court set up to try the notorious gang for its crimes.