Having failed to get justice from the local police over brutal attack on them, the members of an ostracised family including their Septuagenarian ailing mother, walked 7 km on Monday to the Kendrapada Collectorate and staged an indefinite dharana there.
They demanded action against the accused who attacked them and made them suffer the social boycott.
Ashok Kumar Mallick (50) of Baro village under Nikirai police station, his wife, younger brother and sister -in-law walked to the Collectorate by taking their ailing mother on a trolley rickshaw.
Ashok alleged that in September the villagers ransacked their house over a row on making a road on their private land. When they opposed the fellow villagers' move, the family members faced the wrath of the latter. They not only thrashed them but boycotted the family.
Fearing that the villagers might attack them again, Ashok said his family members fled their home and took shelter at a relative's house.
He further alleged that though his family members knocked the doors of local Nikirai police by lodging complaints several times against some villagers and also met the SP of Kendrapada, but they failed to get justice.
Even on September 26, he and his family members brought the matter to the notice of district Collector, but no steps were taken to provide justice to them.
ADM Pitambar Samal later came to the venue and assured the family members to look into their demands but the agitating family members were hell bent on continuing their fast unto death till their demands were fulfilled.