Sorada/Dharakote: In a gruesome incident, miscreants beheaded a tribal leader at Kumarbandha village under Badagada police limits in Ganjam district late Sunday night.
Edungu Gamango was a district unit member of Kishan Mazdoor Sangha, an outfit of small and marginal farmers and labourers. In 2013, Gamango had escaped a murder bid on him over his claim on a forest land for tribals.
Condemning the killing of Gamango, who worked for tribal rights and particularly for proper implementation of Forest Rights Act, CPI (ML) state spokesperson Bhala Chandra Sarangi demanded a Crime Branch inquiry into the incident.
According to reports, Gamango slept outside his house along the road due to extreme heatwave conditions Sunday night. When villagers woke up in the morning, they were stunned to find his head severed from the torso with bloodstains all round the place.
The incident has triggered panic in the area with villagers remaining tightlipped on the issue.
On being informed, Badagada police IIC Biswaja Kumar Routray rushed to the spot and questioned the villagers but failed to elicit any clue.
Later, Aska sub-divisional police officer (SDPO) Subhas Chandra Panda and Sorada IIC Santosh Kumar Jena arrived at the spot accompanied by forensic experts and sniffer dogs.
Police seized the body and sent it for post-mortem to Berhampur-based MKCG Medical College and Hospital.
Sources said tribals and non-tribals have been locked in a bitter fight over the possession of forest land in the area despite the state government granting forest land pattas to landless tribals.
The fight between the two groups escalated after some non-tribals were learnt to have hatched a plan for evicting the tribals from the forest land on the pretext of planting trees.
Alarmed over the development, Gamango and four other tribals who had received forest land pattas, filed a written complaint addressed to the district collector May 7.
They submitted copies of the complaint to the Bhanjanagar sub-collector, the divisional forest officer (DFO), Dharakote block development officer (BDO) and tehsildar the same day.
The complainants sought protection from non-tribals and prayed the authorities not to deprive them of their rights on forest land. PNN