BHUBANESWAR: The state unit of the Vishva Hindu Parishad and BJP on Wednesday came down heavily on the state government for not making public the interim and final reports submitted by the judicial commission that probed the gruesome murder of Swami Laxamanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples at Jalespeta in Kandhamal district on August 23, 2008.
Almost 15 years have passed, but the state government is yet to make the interim report submitted by Justice (retd) Sarat Mohapatra and the final report by Justice (retd) AS Naidu public, state VHP general secretary Mahesh Sahu told mediapersons.
“We have been demanding the government to make the inquiry reports public so that people will know who are the conspirators and what was their motive. Surprisingly, the government is silent. We fail to understand why it had set up the judicial inquiry,” Sahu said.
The interim report of Justice Mohapatra had said that conversion by Christian missionaries was the primary motive behind the murder. In a bid to keep its secular credential intact, the state government took all possible steps to save the missionaries by calling the massacre a handiwork of Maoists, he alleged.
Coming out in support of the VHP demand, state BJP general secretary Jatin Mohanty said the BJD government is doing appeasement politics. “It is the state government which set up the judicial commission of inquiry. Why it is reluctant to table the report of judicial commission in the Assembly,” he questioned.The BJP urged the government to make it public during the monsoon session of the Assembly.