Ixxi 



The descriptions of violence commonly in vogue for revenue and 

 private extortion purposes, which have been spoken to in the course of 

 this inquiry, are as follow : — Keeping a man in the sun ; preventing 

 his going to meals or other calls of nature ; confinement ; preventing 

 cattle from going to pasture by shutting them up in the house ; 

 quartering a peon on the defaulter who is obliged to pay him daily 

 wages ; the use of the kittee ; anundal ; squeezing the crossed fingers 

 with the hands ; pinches on the thighs ; slaps ; blows with fist or whip ; 

 running up and down ; twisting the ears ; making a man sit on the 

 soles of his feet with brickbats behind his knees ; putting a low caste 

 man on the back ; striking two defaulters' heads against each other, or 

 tying them together by their back hair ; placing in the stocks ; tying 

 the hair of the head to a donkey's or buffalo's tail ; placing a necklace 

 of bones or other degrading or disgusting materials round the neck ; 

 and, occasionally, though very rarely, more severe discipline still. 



Some stress seems to have been laid upon the existence of " instru- 

 ments " of torture, and many of the gentlemen who have sent in 

 reports to Government state their belief that the kittee has become 

 obsolete in their districts. 



That the " anundal " (in Telugu gingeri) or tying a man down in 

 a bent position by means of his own cloth or a rope of coir or straw 

 passed over his neck and under his toes is generally common at the 

 present day, is beyond dispute ; and we see no reason to doubt that the 

 kittee (in Telugu cheerata) is also in frequent use. It is a very simple 

 machine, consisting merely of two sticks tied together at one end, 

 between which the fingers are placed as in a lemon squeezer ; but in 

 our judgment it is of very little importance whether this particular 

 form of compression be the one in ordinary use or not, for an equal 

 amount of bodily pain must be produced by that which has superseded 

 the kittee, if anywhere it has gone out of vogue, the compelling a man 

 to interlace his fingers, the ends being squeezed by the hands of peons, 

 who occasionally introduce the use of sand to gain a firmer gripe ; or 

 making a man place his hand flat upon the ground and then pressing 

 downward at either end a stick placed horizontally over the back of 

 the sufferer's fingers. Independently of the general testimony to its 

 use deposed to before us by the complainants whom we have personally 

 examined, we find its use believed in by Mr. G. Forbes, and admitted 

 by the Sheristadar, who says — " Kittees are sometimes kept in both 

 taluks and villages ; if they are not forthcoming in places where they 

 are required for use, the village carpenter is immediately ordered to 

 procure the required number of kittees, which order is implicitly 

 obeyed ; " and in the ease of Akki-nary Appana, we find a Tahsildar 

 tried and sentenced to six months' hard labour in irons and a fine of 

 Rs. 200 for having applied this instrument known in Telugu districts 

 by the name of cheerata to the fingers of the complainant so lately as 

 the middle of the last year. 



It is quite certain that the practice of torture prevails in a much 

 more aggravated degree in Police cases than for realizing the revenue. 

 The modes resorted to in the former appear to be more acute and 

 cruel, though we doubt if anything like an equal number of persons is 

 annually subjected to violence on criminal charges as for default of 

 payment of revenue. 



