Panel submits report on Kandhamal riots

The Justice A S Naidu Commission which probed the 2008 communal riots in Kandhamal district in Odisha and the killing of Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati that preceded the incident, submitted its final report to the state government on Tuesday.

Secretary to the commission A K Patnaik presented the more than 1,000 page report to state Home Secretary Asit Tripathy in the secretariat on Tuesday afternoon.

It took the one-man judicial commission seven years to complete the investigation. Armed miscreants had stormed into Saraswati’s ashram at Jalespeta in Kandhamal district on the night of Janmastami in August, 2008, and had shot at him besides five of his associates. All of them were killed on the spot.

The brutal murder had triggered an unprecedented Hindu-Christian communal conflict in the backward district sending shockwaves across the entire country besides inviting strong reactions at the international level.

The communal frenzy which had continued for almost a month had left more than 40 people dead apart from rendering thousands homeless. Many people had fled the strife-torn district and had taken shelter in state’s capital, Bhubaneswar, and other places in different parts of the country. Though normalcy has returned to the district, several families are yet to go back to their homes. The riots had also left its impact on the state politics. The ruling BJD which had a tie up with the BJP walked out of the alliance to fight the 2009 Assembly and Lok Sabha polls without its longtime partner.