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At the end of September 1854, Aroonachella Moodelly (Arunchala Mudali), a weaver and cultivator hailing from Teroovumanulloor village in Cuddalore Zilla (now a district) was returning home from a neighbouring village. Someone told him the peons and talliars (thaliari or village official) were already at his doorstep. They had ill-treated his brother Narrainsawmy and also the women in the family.
A case of theft
When he was away, there was a robbery in the house of another inhabitant Sudr Ameen. For some reason, the suspicion had fallen on him. Aroonachella Moodelly was afraid to go home. He then went to Cuddalore and complained to Maltby, the Collector, who referred him to the tahsildar Soobba Royer (Subbarayar). He headed to meet the tahsildar, whose office was about “three-quarters of a league” from Moodelly’s house. The tahsildar asked him to stay there till the case of theft came up.
After a day, the tahsildar sent him to his house along with the ‘dayalet’ (a worker). Moodelly found that the taluk peon Kistna Singh, one Narrainsawmy Naiken sent by the tahsildar, puttamonyan Moodroolinga Reddy (Muthulinga Reddy), kurnam Gungdara Pillay (Gangadara Pillai), village munsif Vencataramanian, and other puttamonyan were already at his house.
“I was immediately pinioned, and then tied to a tree, where these people struck me with their slippers, after which I was untied, and placed in the stocks, and was again struck by these men till I fainted. When I recovered, I was told to say that the gold which I had in my possession had been given to me by a thief,” recalled Moodelly, more than three months later while deposing before E.F. Elliot, the Commissioner for the Investigation of alleged Cases of Torture.
He was then taken to the tahsildar, where he was kept in custody for 25 days. The tahsildar questioned him about the gold, and when he asserted that it was his own property, the official quipped that he would not speak the truth.
Torture treatment
As if on cue, those around chose to immediately mete out third-degree treatment. “...handcuffs were put on me, and I was lifted up by my moustaches by a peon named Ramaswammy Naik, and one side of my moustaches were pulled out,” he recounted to Elliot.
His brother was then taken into custody and ill-treated so much that he ‘confessed’ to having seen Moodelly melting something (gold).
“I was then committed, with several others, and tried at Cuddalore, and we were all acquitted; and the Sudr Ameen sent the woman, named Anghee, to the Collector, to give statements respecting the ill-treatment; Anghee having had a kittee (a thumbscrew-like clamping device) applied to her breast to make her confess. We both appeared before the sub-collector, I think his name is Banbury, who heard us, and our statements were taken down, and we were told to go away; this was, I think, in Kartheegy (Karthigai month) before last. My brother, who had been so ill-treated, was made a witness in the case; and one Vencatarana Naik, one of the witnesses, was tried for perjury, and sent to the roads for four years,” he said in his testimony.
Elliot had recorded this on January 17, 1855, and it formed part of the Madras Torture Commission report.
Elliot also recorded the statement of Chellappa Reddy, an inhabitant of Valoothalumbadoo village in Chingleput Zilla (Chengalpet district).
Land dispute
Reddy was a cultivator who owned about 20 cawnies of land. He had mortgaged a portion of which – about one cawny and a quarter – to one Ramaswamy. He later became a victim of torture when he refused to sell the land to the moneylender.
“On the 15th of Avanee last (August 29, 1854), the tahsildar, I do not know his name, sent for me, and asked me to execute a rajeeenamah, agreeing to sell the land to the said Ramaswamy, which I refused to do...,” he recounted. The tahsildar then observed, that Reddy appeared to be an obstinate fellow, and asked the kurnom, Nauga Pillay, whether there was any balance against him.
“On being told that four rupees were due, he ordered the peons present to get the money from me forthwith,” he said. Accordingly the peons, named Cundappa Naik (Kandappa), Culliana Raujah (Kalianna Raja), Permall Naik (Perumal), and a fourth “seized me by the ears, pulled my head down, thumped me on the back and sides, and pinched me on the thighs.” He fell down, and even then they continued to beat him till he fainted. He was then allowed to go home, and he paid the money, 10 days later to the monygar, Ramaswamy Reddy. “I complained of this ill-treatment by petition to the Collector, but I have never received any answer. I had never been treated in this way before,” Reddy said, according to the statement recorded by Elliot.
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