Anti-violence rally in Bhubaneswar. (PTI)

Bhubaneswar, Sept. 21: A Dalit Christian youth was hacked to death in Kandhamal last evening even as its police chief said that the “situation was under control”.

Iswar Digal (33) had left the relief camp in Phulbani town, about 250km from here, last morning to see his ailing father. Iswar, along with his wife Pranati, was returning to the camp — about 7km from the village — after visiting his paralytic father at Gatringia village in Tikabali block in the district when he was abducted from the road passing through a forest around 8.30pm. Pranati also alleged that he had been hacked to death. However, police officers said the body could not be traced.

The couple were staying at the relief camp after their house was burnt in the riots following the communal tensions.

“Iswar’s wife has lodged a case with us. She alleged that her husband and she were intercepted by a group of men who carried him inside the forest and then hacked him,” said Paitambar Bisoi, the officer in charge of Sarangada police station. Iswar had chosen to hide in the forest during the day and only came out to see his father at night.

The news of his homecoming apparently reached the tribals, who had been waiting for him throughout the day, police sources said.

With this casualty, the number of official death toll in the violence following the murder of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his associates last month has gone up to 28. However, Kandhamal superintendent of police S. Praveen Kumar said: “The situation is under control and adequate force has been deployed in sensitive zones to resist any further tension.”

Bajrang Dal flayed

The National Commission for Minorities has blamed Sangh Parivar outfit Bajrang Dal for the communal violence in the NDA-ruled states of Karnataka and Orissa, reports PTI.

“Our teams have returned from both the states. Activists of Bajrang Dal are involved in these attacks in both places. The commission will send reports on the whole gamut of communal clashes in the twin states to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh soon,” commission chairman Md Shafi Qureshi told PTI.

Condemning the attack on churches in Kandhamal and in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikmagalur and Mangalore in Karnataka, the commission stressed the need for confidence building measures to allay the fear from the mind of the minorities in both states.