Mobs defied shoot-at-sight orders in riot-scarred Kandhamal district and set on fire a village dominated by Christians after forcing its residents to leave.
At least one more church was burnt down today at Daringibadi in the southern Orissa district as people went on the rampage, thumbing their noses at the curfew as well as the hordes of policemen patrolling the streets.
Chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who had assured Union minister Sri Prakash Jaiswal yesterday that normality would be restored within three days, admitted in the Assembly today that the situation in Kandhamal was not “fully under control”.
Jaiswal, the internal security minister, is learnt to have said the situation was “out of control”. He had been requested not to visit the district yesterday as it was curfew-bound.
Security forces echoed Jaiswal and said matters had gone out of the hands of the local administration. A source in the Rapid Action Force said the unrest had spread deep. Not only were the state police not acting, the source said, a senior bureaucrat on deputation in Kandhamal hid in the house of a CRPF company commander yesterday fearing the mobs.Shame on the Orissa government and the Central government for letting yet another pogrom happen. Looks like no one learnt any lessons from Gujarat, or maybe they did learn the 'right' lessons going by just how many people have been held accountable for the Gujarat mass murders and displacement. Not a lot of people manage to come back to the places they were chased out and this is another terrible aspect of these riots that tends to be forgotten after things get under control.
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