Mass Attack and House Burning of Jati Naik and others of Tarding village under Athagarh block of Cuttack, Odisha (Code: OD-18.06.2022, Date: 17-Jun-2023 )

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Case Title

Case primary details

Case posted by Ambedkar Lohia Vichar Manch
Case code OD-18.06.2022
Case year 17-Jun-2023
Type of atrocity Other Crimes Against SCs
Whether the case is being followed in the court or not? No

Fact Finding

Fact finding date

Fact finding date Not recorded

Case Incident

Case Incident details

Case incident date 17-Jun-2023
Place Village: Not recorded
Taluka:Not recorded
District: Cuttack District(DP)
State: Odisha
Police station Athagarh
Complaint date 17-Jun-2023
FIR date 17-Jun-2023

Case brief

Case summary

Taradinga is a revenue village of Taradinga Gram Panchayat of Athagarh Block. Nearly 500 upper caste families, 100 Dalit and other families live in the village. In old times one Sachidananda Rajguru was a landlord in the area who was called a King. He had large extent of land; it is said that he possessed certain extent of ceiling surplus land. The dalit sahi was near Hal plot no 978 belonging to Sri Rajguru. The dalits had either no land or very small size homestead land. With increase of family size, the dalit families needed more space for housing and kitchen garden. Around 100 years ago, it is said that Navi Naik, the grandfather of Jati Nayak, prayed Sri Rajguru to provide some land to the SC (Pana) families and he readily allowed the families to settle over his land; accordingly by the verbal deal, the SC families have been staying over the plot since then. By now nearly 10 SC families have physical possession of the land, part of plot no 978.

Recently, the project of developing the school campus into 5T School model was sanctioned. Among other land this plot was proposed to be part of the new school campus. The dominant caste people showed a Deed by the legal heir of Sri Rajguru having pledged the land in favour of school. The dominant castes pressurised the local Tahasildar to evict the SC families. 2 months before, there was a process of demarcation of land and 5 SC families were served with notice for the same. After demarcation, the dalit families were asked to vacate the land. Some upper caste people of the village started forcing them to evict the place saying that the land belongs to the school; they threatened to demolish the houses with JCB machine. The dalits brought this to the notice of the Tahasildar, Sub Collector and the MLA. The dominant caste people also pressurized again and again to the Tahsildar to take the land away from the SC families and take up the development of the school, measure the area and fence it.

On 16.06.2023, the upper caste people of the village organized a meeting by ringing bells and planned the follow up action. On the next day at about 9 am more than 50 people with weapons and lathis entered the SC Sahi. They abused and assaulted whoever came to the forefront and set fire to the houses. Some dalits had gone to meet the Tahasildar to inform about the village meeting by the upper castes. They were informed over phone about the mass attack and fire in the sahi. They said that to the Tahasildar and the Tahasildar informed the Fire Station and the Police. Although the fire brigade reached the village, the dominant caste people obstructed road to restrict their movement to reach the spot. The Police reached the spot and only after that the fire brigade team could act to extinguish fire. By then 5 rooms were burnt with the valuables, currency notes, furniture etc, including rice, gold jewellery, utensils and a bicycle, were completely burnt to ashes.

FIR was registered basing on the complaint by Jati Nayak, but no arrest was made. Surprisingly the incident of obstruction to Fire Brigade, being a grave offence, has not been registered as FIR.

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