Bhubaneswar: Forced to evict their villages in Puri district after they were brutally tortured and their houses torched, hundreds of SC/ST families have made the Mahatma Gandhi Road in the capital city their home.
Staying in makeshift tents on the roadside, the children of these families sat down on the MG Road and studied with books, notebooks and pens as a mark of protest against the indifference of the authorities to their plight on Thursday.
The villagers resorted to novel method of protest as they were allegedly removed from the site by the police and detained overnight. “The police took us on Wednesday midnight and released us on Thursday evening. Though we have filed complaint against 78 people who tortured us and set our houses on fire, neither police nor district administration has taken any action against them,” said a woman protester.
Homeless Children Take To Novel Way Of Protest On MG Marg In Bhubaneswar – YouTube
The protesters belong to Nathapur village under Brahmagiri police station and Kakeda village under Sarankul police limits. They alleged that though 9 months have passed since they were victims of arson, loot and violence, neither the accused have been arrested nor the villagers rehabilitated.
The villagers threatened to resort to self-immolation, if the state government fails to address their plight. “After being forced to leave Nathapur, we had no way but to come to the capital city to draw the attention of the state government. Though we staged a peaceful agitation on the road, the police evacuated us from here also. Since we have nowhere to go, we will ultimately commit mass self-immolation,” said Bidyadhar Dehuri, a leader of the agitating villagers.
