India Today
Farzand Ahmed
Bhubaneswar, November 5, 2008
It's the figure that might force Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to say good bye to his 'trusted political friends' before the coming polls. The 'figure' is as politically devastating as the riots that witnessed 500 Christians being brutalised and massacred in the Kandhamal district in the wake of the slaying of VHP leader Swami Lakshamananda Sarswati on the night of August 23.
Contrast this with the official tolls in the February-May 2002 Gujarat communal carnage.
According to official figures more than a thousand people were killed in the violence after the Godhra train incident. (Independent estimates by rights groups and NGOs placed the figure higher, nearer to 2000).
Clearly 1,000 deaths (official) in the entire state of Gujarat during fours months stand nowhere in comparison to 500 deaths in one district of Orissa in one month. Kandhamal is just a small district of the state.
A CPI (Marxist-Leninist) fact-finding team in its report quoted officials admitting that not less than 500 people, mostly Christians were killed in the month-long anti-Church riots in which VHP and Bajrang Dal played a direct role.
The report said: "The official figure for deaths has been reported to be 31; however, a senior government official on the condition of anonymity informed (the team) that he himself consigned two hundred dead bodies - found from the jungle - to flames after getting them collected in a tractor. As per his estimates based on the intensity and pace of killings the number of those killed is over five hundred".
The report signed by J. P. Minz was published in the November issue of the Liberation, CPI (ML)'s official journal.
The report further said: "In the communal fire two hundred Christian villages and 127 Church and prayer halls were either destroyed or burnt. Apart from this, schools, hospitals, hostels and convents also have been damaged. The incidents of killings, rape and loot also were carried out in addition to former incidents. The shocking fact is that all these incidents took place in full view of police and the police remained mute spectators".
Regarding the role of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal the report said: "The victims in all the relief camps unanimously told the fact finding team that it is the VHP and Bajrang Dal cadres who have sowed the seeds of communal division in the villages. They used to organise meetings of the Kandha tribals and incite them to attack the Christian hamlets and also provided funds for doing this".
Hitherto Naveen Patnaik believed in the official tolls of 31 but the CPI (ML)'s new revelation was likely to widen the rift between BJD of Naveen and BJP which hoped that killing of Swami and Hindu backlash would electorally help the party.
BJP is a partner of the alliance that rules Orissa.
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