POLICE HELP TO THE PARVIARS IN DALIT KILLINGS IN ORISSA

Complaint by eyewitness to killing returned by officer-in-charge of police station Parvathi Menon

P.C. Thomas asks Chief Minister to act immediately on four atrocities committed in Orissa

Bhubaneswar: Ravindra Pradhan shows two unopened white envelopes, soiled and crumpled, with the acknowledgement due slip affixed, addressed to the officer-in-charge, Baliguda police station, Kandhamal district, with a scribbled noting by the postman that reads: “Address refused. Have returned back.”

In them are two written complaints, the first by Ravindra Pradhan (35) on the killing of his physically challenged brother, Roshanand Pradhan, by a Hindutva mob on the night of August 24, and the second by his niece, Ashwini Pradhan, on the burning of her house by the same mob.

Sent to the OIC of the Baliguda police station by registered post, it was refused by him and returned to them by post. Both letters mention the names of those who committed the crimes. The incident took place at Rupagaon village in the Baliguda sub-division. “When we heard the attackers entering, we ran around 200 metres to the nearby field, but my brother being a cripple could not run. I saw the incident with my own eyes, and mentioned the names of those responsible in my complaint,” Mr. Pradhan told The Hindu. He is now in a relief camp run by the Young Men’s Christian Association in Bhubaneswar with 12 members of his family. He said his brother told the family to run and not worry about his safety as the attackers, who were from the same village, knew him and would not attack a physically challenged person.

“We brought this to the notice of the Governor when he came to the relief camp, but we have heard nothing further. We have not even been able to go back to the village to perform the last rites for my brother,” said Motilal Pradhan, father of Ashwini and serving army jawan, who has fought in Kargil. All 38 Christian homes in the village were burnt, but not before they were looted of valuables by the mob.

This is one of the four specific incidents of violence in Kandhamal that was brought to the notice of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Thursday by a fact-finding team comprising P.C. Thomas, Member of Parliament, and V. Surendran Pillai, Member of the Kerala Assembly, both of the Kerala Congress (Joseph).

The other incidents that the delegation has asked the Chief Minister to act on with the utmost urgency, Mr. Thomas told The Hindu in Bhubaneswar, are the killing of RSS leader Lakshmanananda Saraswathi on August 23, the rape of a nun and attack on a priest at Nuagaon village on August 25, and the murder of Divyalochan Digan, a pastor, on August 25. In the last case, the attackers came to the house of the pastor after they had killed him, and, after informing his wife Pushpanjali and their 11-year-old daughter, Mona Lisa, of the murder, proceeded to douse them with kerosene to set them alight. On the pleading of the distraught family, they let them off, but burnt the house.

What is common in three of the four incidents is that there are eyewitnesses ready to give evidence on the precise identity of the killers. “The Chief Minister told us that a few persons have been arrested in connection with Lakshmanananda Saraswathi’s murder. A whole community is in the dock for his murder, and it is imperative that the killers be apprehended if the violence is to stop,” Mr. Thomas said.

“We also told him that the middle level leaders who are giving leadership to the atrocities in Kandhamal must be arrested,” he said.

The team was not able to go to Kandhamal because the district was now curfew-bound. “The Chief Minister promised that he would take immediate action on all four cases. If nothing is done, then I will raise it in the next session of the Lok Sabha,” Mr. Thomas said. He said his party had already demanded of the Prime Minister that a Central Bureau of Investigation probe be ordered into the Kandhamal violence. He has also formally asked the Speaker to constitute a parliamentary delegation to visit Kandhamal.

Police assurance

State Director-General of Police Manmohan Praharaj told The Hindu that anyone who left his home on being affected by the communal violence and was living elsewhere could send his complaint by post to the Kandhamal Superintendent of Police.

The Kandhamal police would verify the matter and if a case was made out a formal case would be registered in the police station concerned, Mr. Praharaj said.

If it was found that a case had already been registered on the basis of a complaint filed by any of the relatives of the persons sending their complaints by post, they would be informed of it by the Kandhamal police, the DGP added.