Prominent Telangana child rights activist P Achyuta Rao succumbs to coronavirus

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, July 22

Telangana’s well-known child rights activist P. Achyuta Rao died of coronavirus on Wednesday, officials said.

Founder of NGO Balala Hakkula Sangham who spreaheaded various campaigns for children’s rights in Telangana as well as united Andhra, Rao, 58, had been undergoing treatment for eight days before he died, and was also put on ventilator support.

A former member of the State Child Rights Commission, Rao lead campaigns against child marriage.

He and his wife Anuradha Rao established the NGO in 1985. He has been behind several petitions on protection of child rights with the State Human Rights Commission.

Rao shot into the national limelight after he had taken up the case of a 13-year-old Jain girl who died in 2016 after fasting for 68 days in Secunderabad as part of a religious ceremony.

His older brother Sridhar, a noted cartoonist, had also tested positive and was in the same hospital as Achyuta Rao, but was released on Wednesday.