The State Government on Friday came in the line of fire of opposition parties, the Congress and the BJP, for the inordinate delay to table the report of the Justice PK Mohanty Commission of Inquiry into the Kalinganagar police firing in Jajpur district in 2006.
Both parties severely criticised the report as it has found no official guilty for the firing, in which 13 tribals were killed.
leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra of the Congress questioned the motive of the State Government in not tabling the judicial commission’s report in the Assembly almost two years after it was submitted to the Government. “As per the rules, the report should have been placed in the House within six months of its submission. While the commission submitted its report to the Government on July 3, 2015, the latter accepted it on June 8, 2016,” pointed out Mishra.
Accusing the State Government of having no faith in law and Constitution, Mishra further questioned how the recommendations and contents of the report were leaked to the media this Thursday.
Former PCC president Niranjan Patnaik rejected the Cabinet decision accepting a “sterile” Kalinganagar commission probe report and demanded immediate tabling of the same in the State Assembly for a discussion.
“Naveenbabu should show moral courage to let his MlAs express their views on the findings of the judicial commission un-encumbered by party whip,” he demanded.
Patnaik further said, “In a welfare State, protecting the weak and the poor is the responsibility of the Government. But if the Government conspires to deny justice and wants the Adivasis to win a complex litigation, never will the weak get justice.”
Senior BJP leader Biswa Bhusan Harichandan said, “When 12 tribals and a policeman were killed in the Kalinganagar firing, how come nobody was held guilty for it. Somebody should have been held responsible. The report is biased, and we cannot trust it.”
Communist Party of India (Marxist-leninist) liberation secretary Yudhisthir Mahapatra said police are responsible for the Kalinganagar firing, and the judicial commission report is far from true.