House panel for judicial probe into Orissa killings

It suggested that the matter be referred to a sitting High Court judge for a final inquiry and also directed the district authorities to provide personal security officers to the anti-liquor activists receiving threat from liquor mafias.

The five-member committee was constituted on July 15 after the Assembly members, irrespective of their party affiliation, urged the Speaker to form a House Committee to probe into the murder of two anti-liquor activists, Urmila Kaunar and Dileswar Dandsena.

The Committee, which collected evidence of the murder, came to the conclusion that the two activists had earned the wrath of local liquor smugglers for successfully carrying out an anti-liquor movement in the villages in the district.

According to the report, villagers had alleged that one Bhikari Charan Awasti, the kingpin of a mafia group involved in gambling and illicit liquor trade, was the prime suspect in the murder of Dandsena, secretary of the Singhabahini Youth Club.

The circumstantial evidence gathered by the committee members revealed that the residents of Dharuadiha village, located on the border of Sundargarh district, had prohibited the consumption of outstill liquor, as a result of which the trade of country liquor had suffered.

Dandsena and his club had considerably curbed the nefarious and clandestine country liquor trade, the committee stated. Dandsena became the target of the mafias as he had organised camps against consumption of country liquor, motivated the people in the area by organising rallies, procession and street plays for the cause of prohibition in the district.

The House Committee suggested that the provisions of the Excise Act be amended so that illicit liquor trade could be treated as a cognizable and non-bailable offence and advised the state excise commissioner to work out the modalities for initiating an amendment to the existing provision of the state excise act.