Rourkela: Sundargarh hogged the limelight for all the wrong reasons in 2024 as the industrial district gained notoriety for a number of heinous crimes against women and girls this year.
Shockwaves spread in the state after a rape accused, out on bail, brutally murdered the minor victim on December 7. The accused youth dismembered the girl’s body into six pieces and burnt her face before dumping the body parts in the Brahmani river. Both the accused and victim belonged to Sundargarh district.
On December 17, a minor girl of Uditnagar was picked up from near the Rourkela railway station and taken to a house in Bisra block where she was gang-raped.
In a fallout of an illicit relationship, five members of a nomadic family including three women were murdered in cold blood by a rival group at Karamdihi within Sadar police limits on October 29.
On September 21, two minor girls of Jharkhand were kidnapped from the busy Bisra Chowk area of Rourkela and gang-raped by three culprits. The next day, another minor girl was kidnapped from outside a pub in the posh Civil Township area and gang-raped by five persons.
Ganjam: 2024 was an eventful year for Ganjam as the southern district, considered as the fortress of BJD, was breached by the BJP in the general elections amid widespread incidents of poll violence.
A BJD bastion for the last 24 years, Ganjam sprang a surprise in the elections as 11 of the 13 Assembly seats and two Parliamentary constituencies were wrested by the BJP with several heavyweights of the regional party biting the dust. Though BJD supremo and former chief minister Naveen Patnaik retained the Hinjili seat, his victory margin was way less than his previous winning leads.
Violence marred the elections in Ganjam with at least seven persons getting killed in poll-related attacks across the district. Over 100 persons were also injured in the poll violence.
In August, the district hogged the headlines for the hooch tragedy in Chikiti where five persons lost their lives and a dozen fell sick after consuming spurious liquor.
Sambalpur: The year 2024 was a mixed bag for Sambalpur. In January, former chief minister Naveen Patnaik dedicated the redeveloped Samaleswari temple under the SAMALEI scheme. The move provided a major boost to religious tourism in the district. The next month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the permanent campus of IIM-Sambalpur at Basantpur.
The district made news in July after doctors of VIMSAR surgically removed over 80 needles from the skull of a 19-year-old girl who was a victim of sorcery. Police later arrested the quack who had pierced the needles as part of sorcery practice.
In August, four poachers were caught red-handed while cooking leopard meat in Landikot reserve forest in Rairakhol. After killing the leopard, the four accused de-skinned the big cat and were cooking its meat when they were nabbed.
Sambalpur also reported several heinous crimes including the gangrape of a 14-year-old girl by five men in October. The case turned political when the victim’s family alleged police inaction due to the involvement of a close associate of Kuchinda MLA.
In November, a 62-year-old woman and her 98-year-old mother were burnt alive over property dispute at Hatpada within Maneswar police limits. The woman’s brother and his son were arrested for their involvement in the murder.
Baripada: Mayurbhanj had much to cheer in 2024 as President Droupadi Murmu laid foundation stones of three railway projects, a tribal research and development centre, Dandbose airport and a new sub-divisional hospital in Rairangpur at a total cost of Rs 6,400 crore on December 8.
The tribal-dominated district also witnessed a change in its political landscape as BJP bagged all the nine Assembly constituencies and the lone Parliamentary seat decimating the BJD in Mayurbhanj.
Jeypore: Koraput had its moments of glory in the year as Raimati Ghiuria’s contribution to the preservation of endangered varieties of rice and millets won her an honorary doctorate from the OUAT. Popularly called the millet queen, Raimati is a native of Nuaguda village in Koraput’s Kundra block.
The district also got a new 300-bed district headquarters hospital building which was inaugurated by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi in December. The CM also laid the foundation stone of a nursing college in Koraput.
Jagatsinghpur: The district mourned its son of the soil after veteran BJD leader Damodar Rout passed away at the age of 83 in March this year. A founding member of the BJD and a close associate of legendary leader Biju Patnaik, Rout was a seven-time MLA from Erasama and Paradip Assembly constituencies.
Jagatsinghpur also reported death of two foreign crew members in vessels anchored at Paradip port. While Russian crew member Milyakov Sergey was found dead in january, Filipino seaman Quirao Earl Wilhelm Azarcon fell to death while working on a vessel in May.