Kalinga Nagar: Police Firing Reloaded

If you are keen on English movies, you can find that most of the hit movies are having their sequels, for example, The Matrix and Matrix-Reloaded movie. Police firing incident in Kalinga Nagar is not less than a movie plot taking Odisha Govt, TATA Steel, Police and Administration and Poor Tribals as characters. How come a hit story not repeating the plot??? Keeping all the humanity and mercy to the bay, here comes another bloody incident of police firing in Kalinga Nagar, Kalinga Nagar: Police Firing Reloaded

Kalinga Nagar still gets foul dreams on police firing on 2nd Jan 2006 and today the incident repeated with one more person being killed and several injured in police firing in Kalinga Nagar, the steel hub of India.

The poor dead man was identified as Laxman Jamuda, a resident of Chandia village. If you have to believe the sounds of the bullets, the policemen have fired at least 10 rounds and ‘Laxman’ became the scapegoat between the police firing skills and protest by other fellow tribals. The incident happened as villagers were opposing construction of a common corridor road in the locality and they too opposed the entry on policemen into their villages.

As per other news sources, officials in both the police and administration were tight lipped about the firing incident. The irony does not end here as the leaders of Bisthapan Virodhi Jana Manch were also not available for their comments as mentioned by Kalinga times (May 12th, 2010). However, the district administration, in a statement, clarified that Laxman died of heatstroke. Chief minister Naveen Patnaik, after his return from New Delhi, said, “I’m informed that nobody was killed in police firing. My government does not believe in violence. However, the matter will be looked into.”

The Predecessor of the incident smells as the trouble had started in the area when hundreds of policemen raided Baligotha village in the area on March 30 and resorted to lathi-charge and firing injuring about 40 persons.

Further Reading on Jan 2nd 2006 Police Firing:Police Firing at Kalinganagar: An Insider Introspect

The author is from Kalinga Nagar area and can be reached at kalinganagar@gmail.com