Four tribals, including two children, die as a result of Police repression

Two children, a one and half year old girl Sumi (D/O Punjabi Kalundia, Gadapur Village), and five years old Raoul (S/o Debendra Kalundia, Gadapur village), died of hunger and heat, while their family was hiding from the police in the hills near Duburi. Two more tribal men, Suren Tamsay, Chandipur Village and Gardi Gaipai, Gobarghati Village who were injured in a police lathicharge, have also died while hiding from the police. Another child, son of Sana Bhadra, has been missing as his mother has been arrested by the police. The deaths of innocent children and tribals caps a larger tragedy wherein thousands of  tribals are being thrown off their ancestral land to make ways for industries in the Kalinganagar complex of Jajpur district of Orissa.

According to an appeal issued by some prominent intellectuals of Orissa, on 9th May 2005, at village Khurunti, nearly 300 tribals and harijans gathered to oppose the Bhumi Puja of the proposed steel plant of Maharashtra Seamless Steel Ltd.. The plant is expected to displace over 6000 people in 13 villages. They had to face severe lathicharge by the police in presence of ADM, Kalinga Nagar. In the melee that ensued, the ADM Kalinga Nagar and the Inspector in charge were injured. Their injuries have been covered extensively in the press and in the TV channels whereas the other side of the story has been completely ignored, including the tribals who were injured in the lathicharge. The ensuing massive police repression on the local tribals and the arrests led these people to flee to the mountains and forest in the vicinity, resulting in the tragic death of four people, including two children.

Kalinganagar Complex is an industrial park set up by IDCO in Jajpur District where industries are being allocated land. IDCO has already acquired the land in the area through the Land acquisition act. The land acquisition by IDCO had provisions of providing compensation for patta land and 10 decimal of land for homesteads for the landless. However, the local tribal people have been mostly cultivating non-patta land due to faulty survey and settlements and regularization of land. Even though they are absolutely dependent on these lands for their livelihoods, they are neither being offered compensation or land in return for the land cultivated by them. The tribals also allege that even people who were eligible for receiving compensation have not received it.

The threat of forced displacement without any alternative livelihood and loss of ancestral lands have led to a strong resistance- as long back as in 1996, the local people has successfully stopped the establishment of a plant by Bhushan Steel at the same site. For the last four months, the locals have been saying that they will not allow the Bhumi Puja unless all their demands are met.

The local people say that the ADM, Kalinga Nagar, promised them that there was no plan for holding the Bhumi Puja. However on seeing the preparations for Bhumi Puja on 9th May morning, 300 tribals, men, women and children, gathered to stop the Bhumi Puja. The ADM and the IIC discussed with the leaders of the gathering and told them that the Bhumi Puja is being postponed and that they should surrender all their traditional weapons including bow and arrows. The leaders, not wanting any confrontation, asked everybody to surrender their traditional weapons. Immediately the ADM and the IIC changed their stand and asked the people to disperse saying that they will have the Bhumi Puja at any cost. When people didn’t move a lathicharge was ordered. The menfolk in the front of the gathering lay down on the ground offering no resistance and were beaten up brutally. Seeing their menfolk being beaten up brutally, the women started pelting stones on the policemen and officials to save the men. In the melee that followed, a number of people including the officials were injured. The police force left the scene threatening the women that they will be back.

Immediately, strong police repression started and 26 persons, including 25 women, have been arrested and sent to jail. Strangely, the same Sub-inspector filed the FIR against almost 300 people, received the FIR and then conducted enquiry, on which basis arrest warrants for over 300 people have been issued. The administration along with OSAP is still conducting raids in the villages. Almost all the other families have fled to the forests and hills nearby and the villages are empty. Temperatures of more than 40 C in the hills and lack of food and water has led to the deaths. The two men, Suren and Gardi were injured in the lathicharge and had taken shelter in the hills. Another old man aged 70, Pandu Gagasai of Gadapur Village,  has had his ribs and back broken in the lathicharge. The villagers allege that Prafulla Ghadei, the local MLA and the Finance minister in the current BJP-BJD Government has informally instructed the local hospitals not to treat the people from the resisting villages.

 The Kalinganagar tragedy and repression is but the tip of the larger tragedy facing the tribal people of Orissa. Deprived of their traditional land and forests by wily outsiders and the forest department, they eke out meagre livings through cultivation on government land and through collection of forest products. Unfortunately for them, they also sit on some of the most valuable mineral deposits including iron ore, bauxite, coal, which are now attracting massive investments from Indian corporate houses and MNCs. The State, utterly dominated by a ruthless, corrupt and anti-people political leadership, is bent on facilitating the loot of Orissa’s mineral resources by the MNCs and Indian Corporates,  without any thought or care for the price being paid by the poor tribals being displaced by these projects.