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Tributes paid to Saheed Laxman Nayak

BERHAMPUR: Homage was paid to Saheed Laxman Nayak in the city on Saturday to mark his sixty-sixth martyrdom day. He was a great tribal civil rights activist of Malkangiri during British era. He was falsely implicated in a case by the British government and sentenced him to death. He was hanged at the age of 43 in Berhampur Circle Jail on March 29 in 1943.

The People’s Trust organised a meeting in his memory at Saheed Laxman Nayak Community Hall in the evening. The meeting was attended by veteran freedom fighter and former state minister Dolagobinda Pradhan and educationist, Dhaneswar Sahu. Mr Pradhan is one of the few living persons in Orissa, who have come across Laxman Nayak during his time.

Mr Pradhan was also lodged in Berhampur jail during 1942-43 as a political prisoner when Laxman Nayak was in the same jail as a prisoner awaiting death sentence. Mr Pradhan was a teenager then. He remembered how the senior Congress leaders used to describe Laxman Nayak as a true Gandhian, who was ready to give up life for truth and peace. He described the martyr as a man who was calm till his death.

“When we used to see him working in the jail gardens with a serene smile on his face we could never believe this man was face to face with death,” he said. Mr Pradhan also described the situation inside the Berhampur circle jail 66 years back when the martyr was being marched to the gallows. All inmates of the jail had shouted slogans against the British government and in honour of the martyr.

In the morning people from all walks of life reached the Berhampur jail to pay homage to the martyr. Floral tributes were paid at the cell where he was kept before his hanging. Administrative officials, jail officials and councillors of the Berhampur municipality were also present in the jail to pay homage. A meeting was organised by the administration at the Saheed Laxman Nayak High School in memory of the martyr.

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