EVACUATION
`The BDO has to vacate immediately and if we refuse police force will
be used,' said the worried survivors of communal violence. When the
violence broke out on August 23, 2008, they were forced to leave their
villages and their houses were burnt down. They had to take shelter in
relief camps, but they were forced to leave from there also after the
new BJD government came to power. Hence they had taken shelter in the
market complex like beggars.
`Where can we go with these two babies?' asked a crying mother Ms.
Menaka Nayak (25). Her youngest baby was born in the camp itself. `We
can not go back to our village, because they will not allow us to live
there if we do not convert to Hinduism. The government is not prepared
to provide security and necessary helps. On top of it they are trying
to throw us out from here also’.
Mr. Moses Nayak, who has been prevented by the Hindu fundamentalists
to come back to his village Ratingia as he had refused to change his
religion unlike his two brothers, presently solely depends on daily
wage based labour works, has no other options than to stay here. An
elderly couple from R.Padikia village are also debarred to come back
to their ancestral land as they failed to present their two ‘pastor’
sons before the communally motivated village mobs.
Mr.Sarat Nayak from Dakedi, a landless labour who can not go back to
his village, complains of the indifference of the school authorities
to get his child admitted in any other school. It has been found
numbers of children within age group of 5-14, who are staying in this
non-official camp, had to discontinue their studies and there is no
visible action by the local administration to bring back these
children to schools again.
Let alone other problems, now the first and foremost need is prevent
further evacuation of these hapless and hopeless adivasi and dalit
victims. Whatever may be the intention, excuses or explanations put
forth by the government, the reality is that one hundred victims of
communal violence will be thrown out on streets within a day or two.
Perhaps, the secular and human rights activists and pro-people media
may respond immediately.