Youth involved in triple murder found hanging

By Akshaya Rout / www.indusvalleytimes.com

Jajpur (Jajpur), Dec. 8: A 28-year-old who allegedly hacked his mother, sister and brother to death on Tuesday night at Katikata under Mangalpur police limit in Jajpur district, was on Thursday found hanging from a tree near his village.

Soubhagya, an educated unemployed youth, was suffering from mental disorder for past couple of years. After hacking his family members to death on Tuesday night, he was absconding to avoid police arrest.

The villagers informed that the mentally deranged youth’s father had committed suicide three months ago.

On Tuesday night, Soubhagya’s mother Usharani, sister Madhusmita and brother Dipti Ranjan were asleep in a room when he attacked them with an axe. All the three died on the spot.

Jajpur superintendent of police Deepak Kumar said the exact cause of the murder was not yet known.

“The exact reason of murder is not yet known. We are investigating into the case. Neighbours say the accused often fought with his family members demanding money from them,” the SP said.

PPSS fears ‘commando-type’ operation, sends SOS to civil societies for help

Sudhir Ranjan Dash / www.indusvalleytimes.com

Paradip:, June 24: Apprehending “commando-type” operation by Orissa police in the proposed steel plant site to evict the local people, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS), an umbrella organisation of anti-displacement forums, on Friday said sent SOS message to civil societies for help.

“We are given to understand that a team led by the chief secretary Bijay Patnaik who has been personally supervising the execution of the 12-million-tonne Posco project has already met the chief minister to seek his approval for a commando type operation in Dhinkia the way the American forces did it in Pakistan to kill Osama Bin Laden,” a press statement released on behalf of PPSS leader Abhaya Sahu said.

Stating that the chief minister is known for his high reliance on bureaucracy, the PPSS statement says the chief secretary was given the assignment of “commando-type” operation in place of his friend and IDCO (Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation) chairman Priyabrata Patnaik who is now out of state.

“As you all know the CM Mr Patnaik believes too much in his bureaucracy. They have also given the police operation responsibility to deputy inspector general of police (DIG) D.S. Kute who ruthlessly oppressed the Kalinga Nagar movement against the Tatas,” the release said.

Quoting a statement by additional district magistrate S. Choudhury who in a television interview said the district administration was awaiting “sanction’ from higher authorities for “final” action, the PPSS said women and children who have formed a human barricade in the project area would definitely oppose any such “night invasion” by armed police.

“Our women and children would protest any such audacious night invasion and the protest will be in the same democratic and peaceful ways, which we have continued for the last six years,” the PPSS said.

It further said: “We shall be happy if good sense prevails upon the chief minister and he says no to such barbaric operation. But since the rulers have sold their conscience to corporations anything may happen. So please put pressure on the CM and please alert all people who could influence the state to take note of such a possibility. We request you to please do the needful to save Dhinkia. We are told their single target this time would be to arrest our leader Abhay Sahu and other leaders. We request all media friends, human rights organisation and pro-people political groups to please get in to action.”

Chief secretary Bijay Patnaik, while denying any such move, said, “The district administration always decides strategy in accordance with ground realities.”

Meanwhile, the CPI and CPI (ML) observed black day protesting forceful eviction of people in the Posco project area.

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Brown sugar worth Rs 4 crore seized in pilgrim city Puri

By Debadas Pradhan/www.indusvalleytimes.com

Bhubaneswar, May 27: The Orissa excise department officials on Friday arrested two persons and seized four kilograms of brown sugars from them in pilgrim city Puri, nearly 65 km from here.

The price of the seized contraband in international market is estimated to be Rs 4 crore, the excise department officials claimed.

The arrested persons were identified as Shyama Das of Puri and Tarachand Haripal of Madhya Pradesh.

According to police, acting on a tip off, - a special team of excise department officials stopped an Indica car which was coming from Bhubaneswar at Atharanala, the entry point to Puri, and recovered the banned item hidden under the seats of the vehicle.

“We were keeping a close watch on the movement of the two drug-peddlers for the past few days. We were informed that they were coming to Puri today with a huge haul of brown sugar. They were caught-red-handed,” the excise department officials said.

In yet another incident in the same city, miscreants seriously injured inspector Puri Town police station B. N. Mohanty by attacking him with the butt of a country-made pistol.

“While on duty, the injured inspector Mr Mohanty saw two criminals wanted in a number of cases were moving around in the city. When He tried to stop them, they attacked him. Despite the murderous assault on him, the inspector overpowered one of the criminals while the other one managed to escape. A manhunt is on to nab him,” informed deputy inspector general of police Sanjay Kumar.

The police officer Mr Mohanty – who sustained serious cut injuries on the left part of his head - was immediately rushed to the district headquarters hospital. His condition is said to be stable and out of danger.

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A tryst with a legend

By Amitabh Thakur/

Lucknow, Feb. 25: Today, when Sri Surendra Bisht, Acting Coordinator of Lok Satta Initiative told me that he was coming to our house, little did I had that he were to have another surprise guest with me.

So, when I opened the door and found a very familiar face, I got some small but pleasant shock. It was Sri K N Govindacharya, the legend about whom we all know so well. We know about his contributions to politics and his society and also about the tiffs he had and the way he has now started an All India campaign by the name of “Knit India” movement.

I have none of the credits to be honoured by the visit of this person, all on his own and hence, when he was there at the door, I was genuinely delighted. I have no inhibition in saying that I would not have got one-tenth of that delight if I had people like SRK or Dhoni were there (not that they are going to come anyway!).

The real thing started now. Having read my name and having talked to me for a minute or so, he started talking in impeccable “Bihari,” with our peculiar style of stretching words and syllables. When asked, I came to know that he can speak Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya and almost all variants of Hindi.

To give an idea of his width of thought and outlook, in the 30 minutes that I interacted with him, he started his life with Left, being closely associated with CPI, then moved to right, with his Sangh associations and now is holding his own independent views. He called his view as being humanistic (influence of Left) and nationalistic (influence from Right).

To go slightly deeper into his unfathomable persona, he saw a book on “Bagamati” river written by another genius of his kind, Dr Dinesh Kumar Mishra (Dr Mishra is a B Tech from IIT Kharagpur who has dedicated all his life to studyand control of flood in North Bihar), and said- “Oh, so this the book by Dr Dinesh. I had heard a lot about him.” I asked him if he would like to talk to Dr Mishra to which he readily agreed and when they talked, it was as if they were friends for years.

There were many other smaller and bigger issues on which he talked, but I could easily realize that the person sitting in front of me was something very-very unusual and special.

When I brought my children to meet Sri Govindacharya, he started talking to them on studies and when my wife Nutan came, he could locate her house both at Patna and in Hazipur, along with a few prominent persons of that region.

By the time he departed, having taken an assurance that we will invite him for lunch the next time, I was feeling completely dazed and mesmerized by his personality.

Being in police, we often have opportunities of meeting “big” people, but it is not that we meet “great” people every other day.

(Amitabh Thakur is an Indian Police Service officer based at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh)

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Collector goes missing, Maoists’ hand suspected

Police clueless about Krishna's whereabouts

By Gurudatta Behera

Malkangiri:, Feb.17: Mr R. Vineel Krishna, the district collector of Malkangiri, went missing on Wednesday evening while returning from public relations camp in a cut-off area inside the Chitrokonda reservoir in the district.

The police suspects that Mr Krishan could have been abducted the Maoists.

Malkangiri, located nearly 750 km from state headquarters, is one of the worst Maoist-hit districts in Orissa.

According to reports, Mr Krishhna had gone to attend a Jana Sampark Yatra (public relations camp) at Badapada village under Kudumuluguma block. He was accompanied by District Rural Development Agency project director Balabant Singh, Kudumuluguma block junior engineer Pabitra Majhi and an employee of Paribartan, a local non-governmental organization.

From the Jana Sampark Yatra place, the collector along with Mr Singh, Mr Majhi and the NGO activist left for Papermetla area by motorcycles to monitor implementation of Rajiv Gandhi Vidyutkaran Yojana, a rural electrification programme. On the way they were intercepted by a group of Maoists who took them to forests.

The released the NGO activists and project director of DRDA sending a letter in their hand demanding release of all Naxal cadres from various jails within 48 hours.

Additional director general of police, Sanjiv Marik said all communications with the collector got disconnected soon after he left the meeting place at around 4 pm.

In Cuttack, the state’s police headquarters, director general police Manmohan Praharaj said: “Nothing could be said at this moment. I will reply at the appropriate time”

Southern range director general of police Soumendra Priyadarshi could not be contacted for his comment as his mobile phone answered “switched off.”

Last year, the rebels had killed at least 38 greyhound jawans of the Andhra Pradesh police they were returning from a combing operation atAlampaka near Gudulguma.

Sources said the collector had not taken adequate security forces with him since the rebels never targeted any senior government officials.

Rebels kill three persons in Sundergarh

By Debdas Pradhan

Sundergarh, Dec. 6: Maoist rebels on Monday slaughtered three persons, including an elected village ward-member and a non-formal teacher, at Topadihi under K. Balanga police limit.

The victims were identified as ward-member Nuan Munda, teacher Nanjan Munda and Doud Munda.

According to police, a group of red rebels on Monday morning came to Topadihi village and took away Doud Munda with them.

On hearing that the rebels had confined Doud in school building on the outskirt of their village, the residents of Topadihi went there and requested them to release him. Although the Maoist freed Doud, they revisited the village after two hours and again picked him (Doud) up. Besides, they also took away Nuan Muna and Nanjan Munda with them.

In the evening, the villagers were informed that the bodies of the three abducted villagers were lying near the Topadihi railway station. The rebels had killed the victims by slitting their throats.

Sources said Doud was in the target of the rebels as they suspected him acting as a police informer. Similarly, Nuan Munda and Nanjan Munda were in their hit-list as they were leading a pro-administration movement in the area.

Eyewitnesses said the rebels, who are around 60-70 in number, were armed to the teeth with automatic guns and rifles.

The police has started combing operation in that area.

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