BJP wants Kandhamal report tabled in Orissa assembly

The interim report of the one-man judicial commission probing last year's Kandhamal violence must be tabled in Orissa assembly, demands opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Former minister and BJP member Jayanarayan Mishra, last week, said the interim report by Justice SC Mohapatra - investigating the communal riots that followed the murder of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati – must be discussed during the assembly session.

The 28-page report which church leaders have called 'figmental' identifies "land disputes, religious conversions and fake certificates" as the impetus behind a four month-long violence against Christians and their properties in the trouble-torn district.

The report, says Justice Mohapatra, "would take at least two years for completition." The commission was formed on September 3, 2008 after violence broke out in Kandhamal on August 24, 2008, a day after the murder of Saraswati and four of his aides.

Mishra said it was the duty of the state government to table the report and also mentioned "many of us MLAs were unable to know the details of the report submitted."

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Orissa, Raphael Cheenath, snubbed the report, and said it was contrary to what the state government had asked for.

Says Cheenath, "the commission spoke on several other matters and not on the subject for which it was set up." He argues that religious conversions were not the chief reason for violence and there are other factors that led to the aggressive assaults.

The commission, he said, must submit a complete report instead of an interim report and also it must wholly focus on the reason of its existence.

Interestingly, a Christian group that goes by the name 'Poor Christian Liberation Movement' (PCLM) is of a disparate opinion. Christian leaders must take the interim report seriously and must study the causes for such growing hostility, the group says.

"Whatever unfavorable to the Church does not mean must be ignored," says RL Francis, president of PCLM. "Such attitude would antagonise the impartial Indian judiciary."

The land issue and obtaining of 'fake' certificates is a serious crime and the Church instead of suppressing the facts must voluntarily come forward for survey by an impartial agency, he adds.