Bhubaneswar, Dec. 26: A delegation of senior Congress leaders today sought governor S.C. Jamir's intervention in mitigating the "alleged neglect and torture being meted out to tribals" in the state by the Naveen Patnaik government.

The Congress had also observed chakka jam for two hours from 10am to 12noon at all the district headquarters in the state.

Senior Congress leaders, including Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Prasad Harichandan, former Union minister Srikant Jena, former PCC chief Jayadev Jena and former Nabarangpur MP Pradeep Majhi, drew the governor's attention to the plight of tribal people in the scheduled areas of the state.

Former Lok Sabha member Majhi and other party activists had sat on a dharna and hunger strike outside the Raj Bhavan since the past six days. Today, they called off their fast.

Majhi alleged that the tribal people were being treated as second-class citizens in the scheduled areas, even though they formed more than one third of the state's population. "They are dying of diseases without treatment and medicine and are forced to starve because of utter poverty. Besides, as many as 726 tribal persons are booked in false cases and are languishing in different jails. As many as 26 tribal persons have been killed in false encounters," said Majhi.

The Congress leaders said the party would no longer remain silent on such issues.

"When the chief minister had promptly announced Rs 12 lakh compensation for the Sum hospital fire victims in Bhubaneswar only last week, he announced Rs 3 lakh each for the family members of Japanese encephalitis victims... The state police had killed five tribal persons at Gumdumaha village in Kandhamal district. Though the government had announced to make the report of the special investigating team into the killings within 90 days and punish the guilty, the report is yet to be submitted," said Majhi.