Bhubaneswar, Nov. 14: Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan today took protection from the Border Security Force (BSF) to visit the Maoist-hit Malkangiri district after the state government advised him against going there for security reasons.

The Malkangiri district police did not accompany the Union minister and a team of state BJP leaders on the plea that the kuchha road linking Palkonda village, 20km from the district headquarters, had not been "sanitised" by security forces.

Pradhan, who was accompanied by state BJP president Basant Panda and BJP legislature party leader K.V. Singh Deo, however, sought help of the BSF, which has been deployed in the area to assist the state police in anti-Maoist operations, and visited Palkonda.

Pradhan and the others had gone to the area to make an on-the-spot assessment of the situation arising out of Japanese encephalitis that had claimed more than 100 lives, particularly those of children, in the district. The Union minister had wanted to visit the village because a Class IV student from the village, Umesh Madhi, had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi drawing his attention to the plight of the villagers and had urged him to visit the area.

After the visit, Pradhan said he had not been allowed to visit the affected area because chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his colleagues had not been to the area yet. He said: "Is it fair to not let somebody to go to a place because you have not been there first?"

Justifying the decision not to provide security to Pradhan, district police superintendent Mitrabhanu Mohapatra said: "Palkonda village is in an interior pocket and has been affected by Maoist activities. It is connected by a kuchha road and we had not sanitised the place. That's the reason why we could not extend him security cover to visit that village. But, the district police was there with the minister when he toured other areas."

Pradhan was scheduled to visit the area on November 4 but postponed his visit after the state government cited security reasons.

"A national disaster kind of situation has emerged there. We have the responsibility to meet people in distress and extend our help and sympathy," said Pradhan, who had gone to Malkangiri from Vizag in a BSF aircraft.

Criticising the state police, the BJP state vice-president Samir Mohanty said: "This was done at the behest of chief minister Naveen Patnaik, who heads the home department. While he is touring different districts to campaign for the panchayat polls, he has not bothered to visit Malkangiri, the malnutrition-affected Nagada cluster of villages in Jajpur or Gumudumaha village in Kandhamal where five innocent tribals were killed by the police in the name of encounter with Maoists."

The BJD leaders, on the other hand, criticised the BJP.

"They are playing politics over corpses. The state is doing its best to contain spread of the disease. Instead of extending support to the efforts of the state government, Pradhan visited the area for political reasons. It would have been better if he could have got experienced doctors from the Center to help the district administration," said BJD vice-president Surjya Narayan Patro.