By IANS
Bhubaneswar : Five days after communal clashes broke out over Christmas celebrations in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, tension persisted in the area with four people feared dead in police firing and the government Friday deciding to get the riots probed by a retired high court judge.
“Retired justice of Orissa High Court Basudev Panigrahi will probe the incidents under the commission of inquiry act,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told reporters here Friday.
The one-man Panigrahi commission will submit its report to the state government within four months, said an official in the chief minister’s office.
The commission will inquire into the background of the clashes, identify people or organisations responsible for it and the role of the administration.
Police said Friday that the core trouble area continued to be the Christian dominated Brahmanigaon village, about 150 km from the district headquarters of Phulbani and about 200 km from the state capital.
On Thursday afternoon, hundreds of residents burnt some Hindu houses. Police rushed in to rescue the villagers and brought them to the station, which was also attacked.
A mob of about 500 people opened fire at the police station, a district police official told IANS. To disperse the mob, police opened fire. In the gunbattle that went on for more than an hour, at least four people were killed and three police officials injured.
The exact number of deaths is yet to be ascertained because all communication to the village has been disrupted, the official said. The roads have been blocked and telephone lines have been down too.
Leading Oriya daily The Sambad put the toll at nine, saying that four were killed in police firing and five in clashes.
The place has been a tinderbox since Monday, when trouble broke out in Brahmanigaon, which has a population of about 4,000.
The government has asked all its district collectors and district police chiefs to remain alert fearing more violence following the news of four people killed in the police firing.
“The state government has asked all its collectors and superintendents of police in all 30 districts to remain alert and see that no violence breaks out in their region,” a senior official of the state home department told IANS.
“They have been informed not to go on leave and stay in the district headquarter to meet any situation,” the official said.
Hindus and Christians clashed over Christmas celebrations. Trouble escalated in the area when some people attacked the vehicle of local Hindu leader Swami Laxmananda Saraswati near Daringbadi when he was on his way to perform a yagna in Brahmanigaon.
Dozens of churches and prayer houses were burnt, vehicles were torched and houses of both Hindus and Christians attacked in the days that followed.
Kandhamal district, which has a population of about 600,000 including 150,000 Christians, is considered one of the most communally sensitive regions in the state with numerous clashes reported between both Hindus and Christians in the past.