Online campaign urges Hyderabad Police to arrest man accused of assaulting trans women
Venkat Yadav was arrested in February 2015 for the murder of a trans woman but he was granted bail eight months later.
Sampoorna, a network of transgender and intersex Indians, on Thursday organised an online campaign to urge Hyderabad Police to take action against a man accused of assaulting trans women in the city since 2012. Venkat Yadav is also accused of murdering a trans woman and is out on bail at present.
The group urged social media users to participate in a Twitter storm with the hashtag #ArrestVenkat. A Twitter storm is a spike in activity around a certain topic.
“Since 2012 Venkat Yadav has been assaulting trans women across the city of Hyderabad,” the group tweeted. “Several FIRs against him went unheeded till he murdered a trans woman, Pravallika in Jan [January] 2015. He is out on bail.”
The online campaign follows a protest by transgender people on September 30 outside the Banjara Hills police station in Hyderabad demanding Yadav’s arrest, The News Minute had reported. The protestors also accused him of harassing the transgender community for years by indulging in extortion.
According to the police, a group led by Yadav lynched Pravallika, a trans woman, in January 2015. “An FIR was registered on the same day and Venkat Yadav was arrested by February,” the protestors said in their statement. “However, he was granted conditional bail in October.”
The protestors alleged that after Yadav came out on bail, he threatened the complainants and their family members, and intimidated them into withdrawing the cases against him.
According to The Hans India, Yadav and his associates have allegedly sexually assaulted, raped, attacked and extorted transgender people in Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda.