Officially speaking, the anti-Christian violence in Orissa has claimed 14 lives. But anyone who has travelled the tribal heartland of Kandhamal post-August 23 can tell that this place has seen more blood than the world will ever know.
It takes only one visit to relief camps in the area to expose the government’s underreporting of Kandhamal’s dead.
At the Hubbac high school camp in G. Udaygiri block, the largest relief camp in the district, this correspondent met more than 20 families that have lost their kin in the brutal aftermath of Laxmananda Saraswati’s killing on August 23.
People are still recounting with horror how their family members were axed and beheaded, torched and blown up with LPG cylinders in kitchens. Others had to run for life to the jungles, while the rioters had savage fun. Hundreds of bodies, claim the survivors of communal violence, are still rotting in the forests, with no search operations being conducted. Most such killings are not reflected in official figures with families unable to furnish proof of alleged murders.
“How can anyone offer proof? Everyone was running to save their lives. Most of us saw the killings from a distance and also how the rioters were torching the bodies to remove evidence. We could not even go back to collect ashes of the dead,” says Chiranjan Digal, whose brother Akbar Digal, a pastor, was allegedly beheaded after he thrice refused to become a Hindu. At least eight pastors have died in the violence, people say.
But like others, Akbar, a resident of Suleshar, finds no mention in police records. “For six days, we pleaded with the police to receive our complaint, but to no avail,” says Chiranjan, whose sister-in-law (Akbar’s wife) and four year-old nephew are lodged at another relief camp at Raikia.
Other murder cases yet to be registered involve the brutal end of Pastor Mathew Naik from Kanbagiri village (whose sister-in-law Mamta says she witnessed the murder) and Gopana Naik from village Badimunda. Gopana had managed to escape to the forests on August 24, but was caught by the radicals when he was returning to his village to assess the damage.
“They had been waiting for him. The moment they saw him coming, they dragged him to the nearby church and killed him with an iron rod. They burnt the body under a pile of church furniture. No FIR has been registered,” Gopana’s brother Taal Naik says.
Such stories of desperation abound, with survivors living in heavy guilt. Among them is Dhai Naik of village Rapodikia, who left his ailing mother-in-law behind as he escaped the mob fury. “I could not go back to get her. She died of starvation. We didn’t even get her body,” he says.
Hundreds line up to confess how shattered and small they feel that they are alive while their kin died such horrible deaths. Vimal Pradhan of village Pannogobiri says he could kill himself for the fact that his Hindu landlord Sidheshwar Pradhan died saving him from the rioters. He was 70.
Bhubaneswar: All entry points to riot-hit Kandhamal district of Orissa were sealed and security tightened in view of a special prayer meeting to pay homage to slain VHP leader Laxmanananda Saraswati.
Additional security forces were sent for deployment in the sensitive district ahead of the proposed ‘Kalas Puja’ of Laxmanananda on Sunday at Chakapada where he had an ashram, official sources said.
Laxmananda’s followers performed a ‘yagna’ during the day at the ashram in Jalespeta, where he was gunned down on the night of August 23.
— PTI
