Countering the claim of Odisha police, villagers here said security personnel engaged in anti-Maoist operations opened fire at innocent people in this village in Odisha’s Kandhamal district on Friday night, killing five persons. .
Odisha police had claimed that the villagers were killed when the autorickshaw they were travelling in was caught in the cross fire during an exchange between policemen and Maoists. The survivors however, claimed that their fellow citizens were killed in cold blood.
“I had stopped the autorickshaw as its wheels were stuck in the mud ahead of a culvert. There was no exchange of fire. Police fired at us when the people were getting inside my vehicle after they pushed it to come out of the mud patch,” said Jahan Majhi, the driver.
Jahan and two others managed to escape the police bullets as they ran away as soon as the security personnel opened fire all of a sudden from the left side of the road.
Sunita Digal, whose one-year-old son was killed in the attack, escaped with bullet injuries on the belly. “The armed men who killed my son and my fellow villagers should be punished,” she said. Neither Sunita nor her husband Loto Digal could attend their child’s funeral in their village on Sunday. While Sunita was admitted to the government hospital at Baliguda in Kandhamal, her husband was admitted to MKCG Medical College and Hospital at Berhampur with serious bullet injuries.
“We have never seen a Maoist in our locality till date, but policemen fired at us for no fault of ours,” said Premila Mallick, who managed to run away from the spot.
A pall of gloom descended on Gumudumaha village when the last rites of the five victims were performed on Sunday. A large number of people from nearby villages attended the funeral. However, no official has visited the village yet after the killings.
Former Congress MP from Nabarangpur, Pradeep Majhi, demanded that killing of innocent Adivasis and Dalits in the name of fighting Maoists be stopped .
Panicked villagers demanded that the anti-Maoist operations be stopped in the region. The Naveen Patnaik government had ordered a judicial probe into the killing of innocent villagers.
