Journalist Anto Akkara interacting with media in Dimapur on July 2.
Journalist Anto Akkara reveals ‘travesty of justice’ in Kandhamal, Odisha
Morung Express News
Dimapur | July 2
Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati of Kandhamal district in Odisha was assassinated under suspicious circumstances on August 23, 2008 midnight.
“Following the Hindu leader's murder, nearly 100 Christians were killed, 300 churches and 6,000 Christian 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 along zigzag routes,” said journalist Anto Akkara while speaking to the media in Dimapur on Monday.
The journalist, who released a book titled ‘Who Killed Swami Laxmanananda?’ in May 2016 first, said he is on a mission to get justice for seven people, all Christians from the remote Kandhamal district in Odisha state of India, who are “languishing in jail following the mysterious murder” of the Swami. Akkara has termed the framing of the seven accused as a “travesty of justice.”
“These innocent Christians - six of them illiterates - were convicted in 2013 for the murder touted as a Christian conspiracy,” noted the journalist.
According to his narrative, a third judge of the trial court - after two judges were transferred – convicted the seven accused to life imprisonment for the Swami’s murder in 2013 on the basis of a “fabricated” theory.
“The seven convicts constituted the ‘second batch of killers’, arrested by the police after the ‘first batch killers’ -seven Christians who had been detained for 40 days and let off after the ‘news’ of Christian conspiracy was publicized across the nation. 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,” Akkara stated.
‘Who Killed Swami Laxmanananda?’ is a documents-based narrative re-published in 2017 of the killing of the 81-year-old Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader in Odisha’s Kandhamal and the consequent widespread violence against members of the Christian community in the district.
“The murder was planned at the highest level and executed by contract killers on Janmashtami night to target the Christians for political gains,” states a note about the book whose foreword has been written by veteran journalist and author, Kuldip Nayar.
The blame game and incitement of violence in Kandhamal involved a deep Sangh Parivar network alongside the murky role played by the police and a farcical cover up allegedly masterminded by the “dubious” India Foundation which has BJP’s Ram Madhav, Himanta Biswa Sarma, Nirmala Sitharaman among its Board of Governors, claimed Akkara
Meanwhile, a “shocking verdict - convicting the 7 accused Christians to life imprisonment - was delivered abruptly in October 2013.”
“Even Hindu neighbours of the convicts questioned how the judicial system could convict their ‘innocent’ neighbours and expressed readiness to be witnesses to prove their innocence in any court,” stated the journalist.
As an appeal is pending before the High Court, Akkara started an online campaign in March 2016. It can be accessed at www.release7innocents.com. Each online signature generates four instant emails to the Chief Justice of India, President, NHRC chairman and High Court of Odisha for the release of the seven incarcerated.
“The hearing on the appeal of the innocent convicts has been repeatedly postponed… I urge the Chief Justice of India and other constitutional authorities to end the travesty of justice and release the seven innocents,” prayed Akkara.
While researching the saga of the seven incarcerated persons of Kandhamal, including one who is mentally challenged, Akkara maintained that he stumbled upon a “mammoth fraud” perpetrated by the India Foundation which has published a book and a film on their version of the Kandhamal killings.
Anto Akkara has published another book titled ‘Kandhamal – a blot on Indian Secularism’ in 2009 dedicated to the Swami and his four disciples who were “brutally murdered” and “dozens of Christians slaughtered for their faith” as well as “Hindus killed for helping fleeing Christians.” The book is foreworded by Ram Puniyani of the All India Secular Forum, Mumbai.
In June 2017, “I visited the ‘innocents’ in jail ‘incognito’. Four days later, three of them were bundled out to different jails outside Kandhamal. The pending appeal of the innocents in Odisha High Court confirms that a mighty octopus is keeping a close watch on Kandhamal affairs - leaving a blot on the judicial system of the country. Kandhamal exposes the ugly of face of Indian democracy,” concluded Anto Akkara who has decided to continue to push for justice.
