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Intellectuals issue appeal for harmony

BHUBANESWAR: With different parts of the State remaining tense over communal conflicts following murder of Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, intellectual from all walks of life took out a peace march appealing for harmony here on Monday.

Artists, civil society members, former bureaucrats, students and journalists participated in the rally that started from Jayaprakash Park near Bhubaneswar railway station and reached Mahatma Gandhi Marg after going round the Raj Mahal Square.

The peace march received spontaneous response from public as several people joined them on their way.

Activists were peeved over the way volatile situation was allowed to escalate and finally took shape of a communal riot.

A delegation met Governor Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare and expressed its deep anguish over the State’s insouciant approach to deal with the situation.

“We appeal to you as the first citizen of the State to take all appropriate, necessary preventive, remedial and corrective measures to uphold our constitutional commitment to secularism and ensure that the investigation reaches its logical end, the victim gets justice and attacks do not escalate into organised communal riots,” representatives submitted said to the Governor.

They said, “we have been a tolerant society and rise of religious extremism, if not opposed and defeated now will lead to perverse communal polarization and cause irreparable damage to the social cultural and secular fabric of our society.”

Journalist Rabi Das said the State must show its resolve to face the challenge from forces spreading hatred and take steps to ensure that such kind of violence did not take place in future.

Painter Jatin Das was of the opinion that there should be immediate solution to conversion or re-conversion, which were root cause of the violence.

Writer Sitakant Mohapatra, former ambassador Abasar Beuria, former advocate general Jayant Das, former director general of police A. B. Tripathy and many activists assembled to condemn the violence.

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