Mogulamma resident of Choudaripalle, was married off at the age of 10 years to a man from the neighboring village of Metlakunta and went to live with her inlaws. Her husband was a drunkard and would hardly ever go to work. A few months after she gave birth to a son her husband died, a victim to the adulterated toddy. Though she did not realize it at first, Mogulamma’s son, whom she had fondly named Narsimhulu, was intellectually disabled with speech impairment. After her husband’s death, she continued to live with her in-laws but slowly the behavior of her 4 brothers-in-law started changing and she quickly moved to her parents’ house. Here she started looking after her disabled son and her parents.

When the social worker came to their village to identify people with disabilities and form them into Self-Help-Groups, Mogulamma came forward to become a member. She also took a very active part in day to day activities of running of the group. So much so that she was elected as the Secretary by the other group members. Due to the committed work she did, she was also assigned the job of cooking the food for the mid-day meals for the children of the local school. Just when things were falling in place for Mogulamma, the earth was pulled from under her feet. A man she had trusted, taking advantage of her willingness to work at any time, called her out one evening on a pretext and after physically overcoming her, raped her in nearby fields.

Though initially she went into shock, Mogulamma slowly recovered and approached the village Sarpanch, but there was no response from him. She then went to the village heads and caste elders but the same response awaited her pleas for justice. Then she went to the government officials but to no avail. When she approached the Sangham members, they went to the Mandal Mahila Samakhya members, who immediately took up the case and filed a case in the police station. By this time the culprit, being one of the richer landlords of the village, had bribed his way around the offices and village. The village elders put severe pressure on Mogulamma to withdraw the case. She had full organizational support from the MVS, MMS, VO, the project and she herself stood firm all through this struggle.

She was of the firm opinion that what had happened to her should not be faced by any other woman in the village and that could be only assured/ ensured if she continued with her demand for justice and redress. This very confidence won her support from more levels and today the culprit lies in the jail, for an indefinite period. Justice was done because Mogulamma was very strong in her convictions and that the MMS and MVS refused to bend under severe political pressure.