SAMBALPUR: Demanding a CBI probe into the violence during Hanuman Jayanti, the high-level fact-finding team of the BJP, that visited Sambalpur on Tuesday, blamed the incidents on failure of police and BJD government.
Led by chairman of Department Related Parliament Committee on Home Affairs and MP from UP, Brij Lal, the team took a dig at the police for failing to prevent the violence despite prior alert from the central and the state governments.
The delegation, formed by BJP national president JP Nadda, visited Jharmunda under Burla police limits to meet the family of the deceased Chandrakant Mirdha who was murdered on April 14. However, they could not meet the family as the house was locked. They also visited Bhawanipali under Jujumura police station and interacted with Biswanath Sikka who was injured on the same day. Later, they held discussions with IG, RDC and members of civil societies.
Addressing the media, Brij Lal said, “It is really surprising that though the family of the tribal youth is away for over a week now, the district administration have no clue about their whereabouts.” He alleged that the tribal tradition had not been followed while performing the last rites of the tribal man and the postmortem not conducted as per procedure.
After meeting Sikka, Lal said attempts were made to forcibly take him away from Sambalpur after he was discharged from the hospital. Claiming that the incident was pre-planned, Brij Lal said, the special branch had alerted police about possibility of the violence. The ministry of home affairs had issued an advisory. But deployment of police in such a sensitive place, where the violence took place on April 12, was very poor, he said. “We will submit a report to Nadda and demand state government write to the Centre for CBI investigation,” the delegation stated.