Gumudumaha Firing: Probe Panel Submits Report

Bhubaneswar: The Justice Janab Mohammed Ajmal Commission of Inquiry, probing into the firing at Gumudumaha village in Kandhamal district in July, 2016, submitted its report to the State Home Department on Saturday.

The 104-page report of the Commission contains the statement of 20 affidavits.

The shocking incident took place in the evening on July 8 in 2016 when five people, including a two-year-old, were killed and seven others were injured near in Gumudumaha village in Kandhamal while they were returning home in an auto-rickshaw. The security personnel, who had laid an ambush for the Maoists inside Malapanga forest, allegedly opened fire at the auto-rickshaw without bothering to make sure that they were the Maoists.

While the Odisha Police claimed that the victim tribals were caught in the crossfire with Maoists, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) after conducting an on-the-spot inquiry maintained that it was not a cross-fire. The deceased included three women and a child.

Amid vociferous demands of the opposition parties, the State Government on July 22 appointed Kandhamal District and Sessions Judge Janab Mohammad Ajmal as the Commission of Inquiry and Bijaya Krushna Patnaik as the Special Prosecutor to probe the matter.

The terms of reference of the Commission covered the incidents before police firing at Gumudumaha village, whether police firing was justified and required, whether police should open fire in such situation.