Are katika

Are-Katika, Katika or Are-Suryavamshi is a sect hailing from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu states in India. In Northern part of the country they are known as khatiks. The traditional trade of this community is goat and sheep butchery. They follow Hinduism and do not slaughter animals, which is done by Muslim Qureshis. After the animal is slaughtered, they separate the skin and other parts from carcass for selling the meat and its bye-products. The women folk sell the bye-products of goat and sheep in toddy shops. Chakna is a traditional delicacy prepared by the women with goat tripe and other animal digestive parts like intestines. Chaknawadi is a place named after this dish in Begum Bazaar of Hyderabad, India, where maximum families of this community hail from. Most of them work as daily wage earners in Mandis (slaughter houses) for their livelihood.

Though more than sixty percent of the Khatiks in Telangana still follow the traditional unclean profession of meat selling, they do not come under Scheduled Caste (SC) status by the Government of Andhra Pradesh and are categorized in Other Backward Class (OBC) depriving them of benefits on par with other 12 states in the country where they come under Schedule Caste (SC) community.