Tormented

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 17: The inspector-general of the state crime branch, Arun Ray, today confirmed that they had received “valuable leads” on Naxalite links in the murders of Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and his four associates.

The senior officer said a special investigating team had received the leads while interrogating three of the accused, Duryodhan Sunamajhi, Munda Badamajhi and Sanatan Badamajhi. The trio have reportedly confessed of being involved in the murder and also provided some clues to the case.

The police have been blaming the Naxalites for the seer’s murder since August 23 night, the day he was shot dead in his ashram. The police suspicion was based on the recovery of a letter purportedly written by the Naxalites.

Later, guns and masks recovered from the three accused reportedly substantiated the theory of the police.

Ray, however, denied the report in a section of the media that the Naxalites were hired by a particular community to eliminate the VHP leader.

A few days ago, CPI(Maoist) Sabyasachi Panda had confessed before a television channel from an undisclosed location that his group had killed Laxmananda. “Swami Laxamananda used to convert the tribals to Hinduism and was thus creating intolerance. We had issued several warnings to him to stop his activities, but he did not heed to it. It had therefore become necessary to eliminate him,” Panda had said.

Today, a prominent Naxalite sympathiser from Andhra Pradesh, P. Vara Vara Rao said the rebels had killed Laxmananda because he was exploiting both the tribals and the Dalits in the area.

“It might be that his murder was a message sent by Maoists to the fundamentalist forces,” said Rao, who spoke to the media after returning from Kandhamal.

The CPI(Maoist) had resolved to fight against imperialism and fundamentalism in a recent meeting in Orissa.

“The violence is not an outcome of ethnic conflict. It’s a clear case of a fascist attack by fundamentalist forces on the Christian minorities, abetted by the trading community, the traditional supporter of Sangh Parivar,” said Rao.