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Saturday, March 27, 1999

BJP wants panel to probe Orissa communal strife

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE  
BHUBANESWAR, MARCH 26: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday urged the state Government to set-up an inquiry commission headed by a sitting judge of Orissa High Court to find out the causes behind the recent spurt of communal violence in Orissa.

Jointly addressing newsmen here on the recent violence at Ranalai village of Gajapati district, leader of BJP legislative party Biswa Bhusan Harichandan and state vice president Prasanta Nanda said that the incident was part of a well-planned conspiracy to malign the BJP and Sangh Parivar.

``The commission should go deep into the recent violence all over the state and find out the actual causes behind them,'' Harichandan maintained, adding, the real culprits were escaping as a few parties were `politicising' all such incidents. He said, for a permanent solution to such violence, the government should come out with specific terms of reference before the judicial probe.

The BJP leader also demanded a full-fledged inquiry into the nun's rape case nearBaripada.

Coming down heavily on both the Congress party and National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), Harichandan alleged an `unholy nexus' between the both to defame and destabilise the BJP-led coalition government at the Centre.

Commenting on the reported statement of NCCI president K Rajratnam that religious conversions were not possible in Orissa due to existence of the Freedom of the Religion Act, the BJP leader said, it does not mean there would be no crime just because we have the Indian Penal Code (IPC).While ruling out the tribal Hindus attacking the Christians at Ranalai, Nanda claimed that the former are in minority in the area. He said, the majority Christians have always dominated the tribal Hindus and all the criminal cases at the Ranalai police station were against the Christians. He informed that about 220 Christian and 35 to 40 tribal Hindu families live at Ranalai.

When asked whether the March 8 meeting of the BJP at Chelipada was convened to evoke the tribal Hindus, Nanda repliedin negative. If that meeting was to provoke the tribal Hindus, what the state Youth Congress president Lalatendu Bidyadhar Mohapatra was doing at Ranalai just a few days before the violence, he asked.

Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.


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