It has been more than a week since two handwritten posters were found pasted at the entrance of Lord Nrusinghanath temple issuing death threat to BJD MLA Bijay Ranjan Singh Bariha, former Congress MLA Satya Bhusan Sahu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Temple Trust Board Purshottam Pradhan and leader of Save Gandhamardan Movement Pradeep Purohit. But, the police are yet to initiate any step on the matter.
The inaction of the police has sparked off resentment among the temple functionaries who have threatened to launch hunger strike in front of the temple.
After the posters issued by Adivasi Mahakal Sangh, were found on May 30, Pradhan lodged a complaint with Paikmal police. But police have apparently taken the matter lightly on the ground that it may be handiwork of some anti-social elements to spread panic among people of the area infested by the Maoists.
However, the temple authorities apprehending threat to their lives, filed a fresh complaint on Thursday accusing the administration and the police of being indifferent to the temple and its officials. Maintaining that the existence of the temple was also under threat, they have demanded action within three days failing which they will resort to hunger strike.
Meanwhile, the Kondh tribals have distanced from the poster and demanded the culprits to be brought to book. They said since their forefathers had entrusted the idol of Lord Nrusinghanath to the then King of Patna Baijal Dev and he had finalised the rituals to be performed, they abide by the tradition and practice which has been going on for centuries.
They said it has been a practice for unmarried Brahmin boys to perform puja in the sanctum sanctorum and only a Kondh tribal will change the flag atop the temple during Nrusingha Chaturdashi. And they have no complaint about anything and demanded that police bring to books the persons who had pasted the posters at the entrance of the temple to create a division among the tribals.
It is suspected that it could be handiwork of the ruling BJD to weaken and divide the tribals to pave the way for bauxite mining in the Gandhamardan Hill range. In fact Gandhamardan Surakhya Yuba Parishad (GSYP) has been in the forefront against bauxite mining in the hill and even forced BALCO to give up its bid for the mining despite making huge investment in the late 1980s.
A couple of years back, Finance Minister Prasanna Acharya had raked up the issue at a meeting and called for a rethink as it would bring about development in the drought prone Padampur sub-division besides providing job opportunities to the locals.
However, his remark resulted in widespread public outcry and he was forced to retract his statement maintaining that he was ‘misquoted’ by the media.
Having Asia’s second largest deposit of high quality bauxite estimated to be 210 million tonnes with 45.75 per cent of alumina, the bauxite deposit spread over 1179.48 acres (10 km long and 2 km wide) has been the cynosure of the State Government besides Vedanta Aluminium Limited and many other industries including Canada-based Continental Resources Limited.
