As many as 25 persons of a village of Sundargarh district were arrested and forwarded to court by police on Monday for taking six policemen, including Officer-in-charge (OIC) of Hatibari police station and one woman constable, as hostage on Sunday late night, while the policemen had gone to the village to arrest two persons with a court warrant.
The rescue operation of the policemen was done in presence of the Sundargarh Collector and the Sundargarh SP . Significantly, the locals had challenged the entry of police to their village, stating that they have no right to enter their village without the permission of their gram sabha, as per the provision of the PESA Act.
Sources said, at about 9 pm on Sunday, a team of six policemen led by OIC Shyamlal Oram and five other constables, including a woman constable Muni Badaik, had entered into Baneilata village to execute a court warrant and arrest two persons of the village, identified as Rajkumar Gaud and Patras Jojo.
Rajkumar allegedly had earlier killed a person under his vehicle and was not attending court summon and similarly Patras had earlier attempted to kill a person with a sharp weapon and evading court summon.
Carrying the court warrant, while the police picked up both the accused and were about to leave their village, hundreds of locals gheraoed the police van and did not allow them to move. The villagers not only freed the two arrested but also kept all six policemen as hostages in a room and released the air from the tyres of the police vehicle.
After getting information, senior police officials and those from the district administration rushed to the village for rescuing the policemen. "At about 12.00 midnight, Sundargarh SP Soumya Mishra called me and informed me about the development, following which we convened a meeting among all senior officials immediately," saidCollector SK Meena. "We decided that myself and Sundargarh SP will lead the operation to the spot and accordingly reached at the spot at about 4 am along with three platoons police force and rescued all policemen from the spot, who were kept as hostages," Meena said. He informed that as many as 25 villagers were arrested by the police. Significantly, while several tribal groups have been leadingagitations in the district demanding implementation of the PESA Act and claiming that the role of gram sabha is supreme in their locality as per the provision of the law, the district administration has been claiming that PESA Act is already implemented. "On May 11, we had conducted a meeting of the Sarpanchs of Sundargarh district, where in from the district administration side, clarifications were given about implementation of the PESA Act," said Meena.
He added that the administration was trying to clear the misconception about the role of gram sabha under the provision of PESA Act, so that the locals do not take the law to their hands.