BHUBANESWAR: The Rayagada administration has prohibited entry of two organisations and their office-bearers along with seven civil rights activists to six gram panchayats of the district from Friday till August 11 unless specifically permitted.
The prohibitory orders under section 163 of the BNSS, 2023 has been imposed on ‘Maa Mati Mali Suraksha Manch’ and ‘Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti’ along with their office-bearers and activists including Prafulla Samantara, Narendra Mohanty, Lingaraj Azad, Raja Ranjan, Saranya Kumari, Raj Kishore Sunani and Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar.
They have been barred from entering, assembling, addressing any gathering or participating in any public or quasi-public activity within the jurisdiction of Sunger, Adajore, Sindoor Ghati, Talajhiri and Kashipur gram panchayats.
The organisations have been planning meetings in Sijhimali hill region along with processions in these panchayats on the occasion of World Indigenous People’s Day on Saturday.
The orders came following two petitions received by Rayagada sub-collector from locals of Sagabari and Sunger about the movement and mobilisation of certain people in the past 10 days, threatening tribals to oppose the mining project at Sijhimali or face social boycott, apart from the intelligence inputs.
“The organisations inviting the activists have neither intimated the district administration nor submitted the list of speakers. Although the district administration attempted to contact some individuals, including Patkar, they did not respond to calls while some replied that they may come,” the orders stated.
Stating that the entire Sijhimali region has a high threat of left-wing extremism, Rayagada collector Ashutosh Kulkarni asked the SP to take necessary preventive and coercive action to pre-empt any breach of peace.
Earlier, a similar order on the ban of entry of a doctor and activists was challenged in the Orissa High Court, which had quashed the controversial order.