The officials of Khariar block office in Nuapada district have gone on an indefinite pen-down stir from Friday.
The OAS Officers’ Association had earlier submitted a memorandum to the district Collector demanding action against two youths, Subash Baghel and Manoj Sunani, who had misbehaved with the Khariar BDO and the PD, DRDA on September 30.In spite of an FIR filed by the PD, DRDA at the Khariar police station, no action was taken against the accused. The OAS officers alleged that the police did not take any action although the accused were moving free and had given opportunity to the accused to obtain bail from the High Court.
The issue of going on a stir took further momentum when one Nandalal Pande, husband of the Zila Parishad President behaved arrogantly with the Khariar BDO in his office chamber on Thursday afternoon.The BDO informed that Pande had objected to the release of the outstanding bills to a Village level leader (Vll), who had been involved in the construction of a road from village Samserpadar to Junapen alleging that the quality of the work was not up to the mark. However, the BDO released the fund after field verification by the DRDA engineers and approval of the PD, DRDA.
This is the third incident of verbal attack on the block officials in last one month, the first being on the Block Progress Assistant Padmanav Patra, who was abused and threatened by a woman for identifying her as a nonmember at an official meeting of the block. The woman had filed a false case of molestation against Patra.
The police have been blamed for not taking strong action against the lumpen elements hovering around the block office in spite of the FIRs filed by the aggrieved block officials in the past. “The Nuapada police have become leaderless after the transfer of Umashankar Das as Superintendent of Police (SP) of Bargarh,” said a district official. The new SP of Nuapada was sent on a three-month-long training after his joining in the district.