Tribal organisation Zilla Adivasi Samaj Mahasangh (ZASM) gheraoed the office of the Malkangiri District Collector in Odisha on Wednesday demanding concrete steps to check Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) in the district.
The activists of the organization took out a rally in Malkangiri town that culminated at the Collector’s office.
They gheraoed the office shouting slogans against the alleged failure of the government to protect the children in the district.
They threatened to intensify their agitation further if the government failed to curb the diseases within next seven days.
The ZASM had called a dawn-to-dusk bandh in Malkangiri district over the same issue on Tuesday.
Malkangiri Collector K.Sudarshan Chakravarthy came out of his office and held discussions with the agitating tribals. They handed over a memorandum addressed to the State Governor to the Collector. The memorandum contains five demands including declaration of JE outbreak in Malkangiri district to be a national calamity and Rs 10 lakh compensation for the bereaved families.
Till now 95 children have die due to JE in the district.
ZASM also alleged lack of proper medical facility and dearth of doctors and para-medical staff in the district and demanded that this be rectified as soon as possible.
