Pradip Majhi among 17 Cong workers sent to jail

Nabarangpur: Seventeen Congress workers, including former Congress MP Pradip Majhi, were sent to jail on on Sunday on charges of ransacking the Raighara forest range office and beating up forest and police personnel.

On Saturday, police had arrested Majhi and Congress activists for allegedly ransacking the Raighara range office. The Congress activists had forcibly entered the range office and caused heavy damage to it before beating up Ranger Kumar Khara and Raighara ASI Bulu Patnaik.

They were staging a demonstration demanding immediate allotment of forest land patta to tribals and conduct of a fresh survey to identify eligible poor beneficiaries of ration cards.

During the demonstration Majhi had said, “We are ready to go to jail 100 times. We want forest land patta for tribals and a fresh ration card survey to include poor eligible families.”