Bhubaneswar: Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) central organising general secretary Milind Parande has demanded that the missing Justice A.S. Naidu Commission report on the 2008 murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati be traced and made public, alleging that its disappearance is hindering the pursuit of justice.
Addressing a press conference Wednesday, Parande alleged that Swami Lakshmanananda was assassinated on Janmashtami night in 2008 for opposing religious conversions and cow slaughter. He claimed that the security personnel deployed for the seer’s protection were withdrawn a day before the killing due to the negligence of the then government.
Questioning the disappearance of the inquiry report from the State Secretariat, Parande said the incident raised serious concerns over administrative transparency.
The VHP’s Central Management Committee had adopted a resolution at its recent meeting in New Delhi, demanding that the report be traced and made public, he added.
Parande also announced that the VHP would launch a nationwide ‘Hitachintak Abhiyan’ from November 22 to December 6, targeting enrolment of one crore members, including five lakh in Odisha.
The organisation would also hold special programmes to mark the birth centenaries of its former international president Ashok Singhal and Swami Lakshmanananda. As part of the campaign, the VHP plans to take the message of the seer’s sacrifice and Sanatan culture to 25,000 villages across Odisha, he said.
The demand comes amid a Crime Branch investigation ordered by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi July 27 into the disappearance of the Justice A.S. Naidu Commission report. The Home Department had earlier lodged a police complaint over the missing report, along with an inquiry report by the Revenue Divisional Commissioner into a fire at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar.
Swami Lakshmanananda, who worked among Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in Kandhamal and other parts of Odisha for over four decades, was assassinated August 23, 2008, during Janmashtami celebrations. The killing triggered large-scale communal violence in Kandhamal, following which the then BJD government instituted a judicial inquiry.
The commission was initially headed by Justice Sarat Mohapatra. After his death, Justice A.S. Naidu took over and submitted the report to the State Government September 16, 2016, after nearly eight years of inquiry. However, its findings were never made public.