Even as the riot-hit Kandhamal district is yet to return to normalcy, tension ran high for the second day on Sunday in the curfew-bound Jeypore town in Koraput district.
Stray incidents of stone-pelting and clashes were reported in Jeypore, even as the district administration was trying to restore normalcy in the town by forming a peace committee.
At least two persons were injured in police firing, while another 36, including policemen, were injured in a clash that broke out on Saturday following the clash among college students over writing against a community on the college wall.
At least six churches and prayer houses were damaged in Baipariguda, near Jeypore, while a dozen vehicles were smashed and set afire by the angry mobs which ransacked the police station.
Road traffic on NH 43 was disrupted in the aftermath of the clashes.
“Although tension is prevailing in the town, it is under control,” said BK Sahu, the district collector. “At least 12 people have been arrested in this connection,” he added.
As a precautionary measure to bring back normalcy in the district, the district collector said that all the educational institutions have been ordered to be closed for the next three days. “One company of the Central Reserve Police (CRPF) and several platoons of Orissa State Armed Police (OSAP) have been deployed in the sensitive areas of the district. The district administration has sought another two companies of CRPF to be deployed in the district,” Sahu informed.
The prohibitory order, however, may be continued in the town for some more days, sources said.
Meanwhile, the curfew has been continuing for six days in nine places at Kandhamal district even though the government claimed that the situation was limping back to normal.
“The district is fast returning to normalcy,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said before leaving for Bhubaneswar.
With three more bodies recovered from Raikia area, the total death toll in the communal violence in the district has gone up to 15.
Patnaik was on a two-day visit to the strife-torn Kandhamal district to take stock of the situation.
He held a high-level meting with the officials at Phulabani on Saturday night.
The CM also visited the Jalespeta ashram near Tumudibandh, where the senior VHP leader Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his followers were gunned down by the miscreants on August 23.
The killing of the Swami had triggered communal violence across the district and other parts of the state.
Repeating his earlier stand, the chief minister denied any CBI probe into the whole incident, adding, “I have already ordered for a judicial probe in the tragic incident.”
Patnaik said he had talked to Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, requesting for ten more central forces to be deployed in the sensitive areas. He said the government would give house building assistance to the victims and relief materials like clothes, utensils and blankets was being provided.
“The people who had fled from their houses were returning to the relief camps set up by the government. About 8,000 people were being attended to in the seven relief camps set up in different places,” said Satyabrat Sahu, revenue divisional commissioner of the southern division.
