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Kandhamal convicts plight highlighted by investigative journalist


Mangalore Today News Network

Jan 23, 2017: Reports intimate that Anto Akkara author of several books on the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Odisha has urged youth to speak up for the persecuted people of Kandhamal.

Kandhamal 23 “I am glad to share with all the plight of seven innocents, who are languishing in jail for allegedly killing a Hindu leader. Let there be more volunteers to speak up for the voiceless,” Anto Akkara, a veteran journalist stated at a convention recently.  It seems he has made extensive visits to Kandhamal district of Odisha that witnessed unprecedented attacks for several months after the Hindu leader’s death on August 23, 2008.

Akkara urged people who care to “stand up and raise your voice for the voiceless and sign the online petition for their release at www.release7innocents.com with graphic display of how to sign the petition to demand their release.”

The 52-year-old author also urged them to read the book ‘ who killed swami Laxmananamda that reviewers have said reads like a detective novel.  Giving a short background to the Kandhamal pogrom, Akkara said the seven people languishing in jail are living martyrs. They are in jail to perpetuate the Kandhamal fraud. Seven people from remote Kandhamal are behind the bars following the mysterious murder of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati. These Christians, six of them illiterates, were convicted in 2013 for the murder. 

Following the Hindu leader’s murder, nearly 100 Christians had been killed and 300 churches and 6,000 houses plundered and torched in unabated violence that continued for weeks. Hindu masses – most of them illiterate-had been incited to take revenge on the Christians after the slain Swami’s body was paraded across Kandhamal for two days through the winding lanes.

A third judge of the trial court-after two judges were transferred-convicted the accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment on the basis of a fabricated conspiracy theory despite hardly any credible evidence brought before the court. In mid 2015, two top police officials-who had relied upon the same conspiracy theory to ensure the conviction of the accused-have testified before the Kandhamal judicial Inquiry commission that the allegations were false.

Yet, the hearing on the appeal of the innocent convicts has been repeatedly postponed by the Odisha High Court. So, Akkara has urged the Chief Justice of India and other constitutional authorities to end the travesty of justice and release the seven innocents.


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