By Jatindra Dash, IANS
Phulbani (Orissa) : Hundreds of riot victims in Orissa’s Kandhamal district whose houses were razed to the ground by mobs are battling the winter chill and falling prey to diseases as they huddle in forests, too scared to go home.
Rioters have torched hundreds of houses in this district about 200 km from state capital Bhubaneswar. Dozens of churches where the victims may have sheltered have also been burnt down in the riots that have claimed at least five lives since they started on Christmas Eve.
The district administration claims that most of those who took refuge in forests after their houses were torched have returned and are taking shelter in temporary relief camps.
But locals allege that hundreds of riot victims are still stranded in the forests.
At least 3,200 people fled Barakhama village, some 100 km from the district headquarter of Phulbani, after riots broke out in the area on Dec 25.
Barakhama has a population of over 5,000 and about 2,000 of them are from the Scheduled Caste (SC) Pana who are mostly Christian. Three churches and 200 houses in the area were damaged during the riots.
About 2,000 people have returned to the village. Of the rest, about 650 people have taken shelter in the relief camp set up by the administration at the nearby town of Baliguda.
About 550 people are still sheltering in a nearby forest, a top district administrative official told IANS. The administration is trying to locate them, he said.
The minimum temperature in the district has remained between five and six degrees Celsius for the past seven days this winter, an official of the Bhubaneswar meteorological office said.
“People who have taken shelter in the forest do not have clothes and food. They are trying to keep warm by burning wood,” Anadi Naik, a 60-year-old resident of Barakhama village, told IANS.
Naik and his wife fled to the forest after rioters damaged their one room house. Despite their fear, they returned Tuesday in search of something to eat.
“We are Hindu. In spite of that they burnt my house,” said Naik who has only a loincloth to cover his body. Nor does his wife have anything apart from the clothes on her back.
“Many of those living in jungles have developed dysentery, diarrhoea and other intestinal disorders,” a district health official told IANS on condition of anonymity.
“Government doctors are not being allowed to go on leave. The local administration has formed medical teams and is sending them to various places to treat those affected,” he said.
“The state government has opened at least three relief camps in the region that are accommodating about 1,500 people. The administration is providing clothes, food and monitoring the health of the people in the camps,” the official added.