Terming the killing of five persons in Kandhamal as "cold blooded murder" and not an accident during the encounter between the police and Maoists, a Congress team today held BJD regime in Odisha responsible for the tragedy and accused it of trying to shield the culprits.
"Killing of five persons in the tribal dominated district a fortight ago was nothing but a cold blooded murder...It is rare in a civilised society," Kishore Chandra Deb, who led the 5-member All India Congress Committee (AICC) team to Gumudumaha and met victims' families, told reporters.
Rubbishing that villagers were caught in the crossfire in anti-Maoist operation on July 8 night, Deb said the BJD government in Odisha was directly responsible for the "unfortunate and uncalled for incident".
Claiming that failure of intelligence was believed to be the main reason of the incident, the senior Congress leader said the team would submit a detailed report to AICC high command and also raise the matter in Parliament.
Coming down heavily on Naveen Patnaik regime, members of the team, formed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi to ascertain the circumstances that led to the tragedy, accused the state government of trying to cover up the whole episode and shield the culprits.
"In the name of anti-Maoist operation, innocent poor people were gunned down," they claimed.
The probe by the special investigation team (SIT) is simply an eyewash and cover up exercise, they alleged.
The other team members were Jairam Ramesh, Arun Oraon, Vincent Pala and KH Muniyappa. They were accompanied by Odisha PCC President Prasad Harichandan.
Hitting out at the state Government, Muniyappa said the people of the tribal-dominated district are far from the socio-economic mainstream and deprived of the fruits of development.
Minimum basic facilities are yet to be provided to the tribal people and the ex-gratia given to the deceased families was not adequate, he said after the team visited the incident site and interacted with relatives of the dead and injured.
