Odisha govt claims no official indicted over K'Nagar police firing

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government today claimed that the judicial commission which probed the killing of 13 people in police firing at Kalinga Nagar industrial hub of Jajpur district in 2006, has not indicted any official for the incident.

"The judicial panel headed by Justice Pradyumna Kumar Mohanty has not made any recommendation against any official for the police firing incident," Home secretary Asit Tripathy told reporters after the State Cabinet approved a proposal of laying the final report of the Commission of Inquiry in the assembly.

The Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik approved the proposal which also said that the report along with a memorandum of Action Taken be placed before the Odisha Assembly during its next session.

The state government had appointed a judicial commission to enquire into death of 12 persons on the spot due to police firing on January 2, 2006 at Kalinga Nagar in Jajpur district. Another person had also died taking the total toll to 13.

The term of reference of the commission included analysis of sequence of events and circumstances leading to police firing at Kalinga Nagar, whether measures taken, the quantum of force used in anticipating, preventing and handling situation were adequate, inadequate or in excess of requirement and the responsibility for such act of commission or omission.

The commission's term of reference also included the role, conduct and responsibility of the organisation, group of individuals or persons, if any, in influencing, precipitating the incident: and any other matter concerned with or incidental thereto as the commission may consider appropriate.

"The state government had accepted the report on June 8, 2016. The commission had submitted its report to the government on July 3, 2015," said Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare minister S N Patro.

Patro said the state government has meanwhile met all the recommendation of the judicial panel. "As per the recommendation of the commission, at least one member from the families of the persons deceased on account of the police firing had been offered employment by the beneficiary companies in the Kalinga Nagar Integrated Industrial Complex.

Hence, the recommendation of the commission in this respect has been compiled," Patro said.

Patro also claimed that other recommendations have also been compiled.

The then Jajpur District Collector Saswat Mishra and SP Binaytosh Mishra were shifted from their place of posting in wake of the statewide outcry over the police firing incident at Kalinga Nagar industrial hub in 2006.