Andhra Pradesh: Woman officer puts up rope barricade in office

Uma Maheshwari, a tehsildar in Andhra Pradesh's Pathikonda tied up a rope inside her office. The officer's move is to stop people from coming too close to her.  Uma Maheshwari told the media that she was forced to take this step to ensure her safety after a woman tehsildar was set ablaze in her chamber. 

'I panicked after Vijaya's murder'

"I panicked after Vijaya's murder. Yesterday some people came to my office without any application, they were drunk. Seeing them in such a condition scared me. So I tied a rope creating a barricade between my chair and the visitors," she said. However, she said she put up the rope for an hour. "The rope was tied for only an hour, later I removed it. I did so only out of fear," she said.

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Woman Revenue officer set ablaze by a farmer 

A woman block revenue officer from Telangana was set ablaze by a farmer inside her office on Monday. The officer was identified as Vijaya Das. According to reports, the farmer identified as K Suresh was upset with Vijaya over a land dispute. Suresh went to Vijaya's Reddy office with a bottle of petrol and poured it on her and set her ablaze. Vijaya's driver and another visitor tried to rescue her and sustained burn injuries, however, she died in the incident. 

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K Suresh later tried to set himself ablaze too, however, he survived. The incident took place in Abdullaprumet Mandal, RangaReddy district. “Investigation is underway to find out the exact details as of why the accused took the extreme step. We will also find out how he managed to get into a government office and commit such an atrocity in the broad daylight. There would have been so many people around,” Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said in an earlier statement. 

Following the incident, the local Revenue office employees took to protest condemning the incident and demanded stringent action on the culprit. "This is not about a man or a woman being attacked; a government employee was set ablaze in the broad daylight. The highly condemnable incident,” Telangana Cabinet Minister Sabitha Indra Reddy told media on Monday.

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Government officers attacked

This is the third incident in the last six months that a woman government employee has been attacked. Earlier, two forest officers were attacked by locals. A female forest officer was attacked by TRS workers. In another incident, Akash Vijayvargiya, 34, a first-time MLA representing Indore-3 Assembly segment, was recently caught on camera assaulting municipal officer Dhirendra Singh Bais. 

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(With ANI inputs)