Even as Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik dedicated to the public the first phase of the Tata Steel’s Rs2,5000-crore Kalinganagar project on Wednesday, the State Government is completely silent over the findings of the Judicial Commission of Enquiry that was ordered to probe into the death of 14 local tribals in police firing on January 2, 2006 during construction of the steel plant’s boundary wall.
After reluctantly ordering a judicial inquiry in February 2006 to be headed by the then sitting judge of the Orissa High Court AS Naidu, the Government was forced to hand over the probe to retired judge PK Patro in January 2007 after the Supreme Court objected to the sitting judges of the HC heading judicial probe panels.
But the State Government did not allow Justice Patro to complete the probe as he was made the lok Pal in May 2008. After keeping the judicial probe under suspension for over two years, another retired judge radyumna K Mohanty was appointed to head the panel afresh in October 2010, and he was asked to probe from where Justice Patro had left.
Similarly, Justice Mohanty too was not allowed to conduct the probe properly as he was also asked to probe into the 2011 Pipili gang rape and murder case simultaneously. But nevertheless, Justice Mohanty completed the probe into the police firing and submitted its report to the government in May this year.
According to highly-placed sources, the Government has not taken any step after receiving the report. It is suspected that like many previous such reports, this judicial inquiry report is likely to gather dust as the Government is not inclined to give justice to the poor tribals and displaced people of the locality.
It was brought to the notice of the probe commission that on the ill-fated day, nearly 1,200 locals had gathered on the spot to protest against construction of the boundary wall. At least 12 tribal persons were killed on that day of 2006 when police indiscriminately opened fire to disperse the agitators. One policeman was also allegedly
killed by the protestors on that day at the spot.
As many as 150 persons had filed affidavits before the commission out of which Justice Naidu had examined about 15 witnesses, including the then Jajpur district Collector and SP in about 20 sittings he conducted during his tenure. Justice Naidu too had issued notices to several local political leaders, including the then Finance Minister Prafulla Ghadai.
While Ghadai did not appear before the panel, many defence witnesses too did not cooperate with the commission.
“It was unfortunate that the entire exercise by the commission and the lawyers appearing before the commission went in vain,” says lawyer Bibhu Prasad Tripathy, who had appeared for the family of a police firing victim.