Kandhmal on boil again: 1 shot, 2 houses torched
Written by changthai11 on Monday, October 20th, 2008
Kandhmal on boil again: 1 shot, 2 houses torched
20 Oct 2008, Sandeep Mishra, TNN
BHUBANESWAR: Peace continues to elude Orissa’s strife-torn Kandhmal district where a tribal was shot at and two houses torched in G Udaygiri block late on Saturday evening.
The news of fresh violence, a big setback to the administration’s initiatives for restoration of calm, came just ahead of opposition Congress’ communal harmony rally in the district.
Sources said a group of unidentified people shot Manoj Pradhan (33), a Hindu, in his leg outside his residence. “The attackers fired five rounds at Pradhan but only one bullet hit him. He was rushed to a local hospital and later shifted to district hospital, Phulbani,” a source said.
Sources said Pradhan couldn’t identify the attackers and that the possible role of a Christian group or Maoists is being probed. Kandhmal SP Praveen Kumar told TOI: “As of now, we have found no communal link to the incident. But we’re verifying all angles.”
Adding to the administration’s woes was the burning of two houses at Kurumingia village in G Udaygiri. One house belonged to a Christian while the other to a tribal-Hindu. This has led to suspicion that mischief mongers could be behind the incident with a view to fuel the ethno-communal fire.
Saturday’s violence coincided with the visit of the one-man judicial commission, headed by retired Justice Sarat Chandra Mohapatra, to the troubled area. It also came a day before a district-level peace committee meeting, convened by the Kandhmal collector Krishan Kumar, to sustain the fledgling peace process.
“We’re making different strategies to calm down things and restore full normalcy. Considering the sharp divide, it’ll certainly take some time. But we’re moving in the right direction,” special administrator for Kandhmal Madhusudan Padhi said.
Meanwhile, Congress leader and Union minister Ajay Maken led a rally for the restoration of peace at Baliguda — the scene of some of the worst violence in preceding weeks — on Sunday. But the rally brought to the fore the widening gap within the party as leader of opposition J B Patnaik and G Udaygiri lawmaker Ajayanti Pradhan stayed away from the event.
