Stop Dara now

Four Christians and one Muslim have been killed in Orissa. The timing of the killings is significant -- they roughly coincided with the H...

Four Christians and one Muslim have been killed in Orissa. The timing of the killings is significant 8212; they roughly coincided with the Hindu festivals of Saraswati Puja, Raksha Bandhan and Janmashtami. The killings were ritualistic, in the sense that the methods used were so macabre that they would never be considered by ordinary criminals. Fire and bows and arrows are the weapons of ancient retribution, not the tools of the trade of the professional. Yet, the administration is still mulling over the motive 8212; the latest attack on Roman Catholic priest Arul Doss is on the brink of being ascribed to a land dispute. It is no secret that religion is frequently used to settle private feuds, especially over property, just as accusations of witchcraft are used to cut women out of inheritances. The issue here is not the motive. It is the fact that there are people loose in Orissa who are no better than the late, unlamented sect of Thugs. L.K. Advani has asked the state government to apprehend them, but this is theleast he could have done. And Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang, who came into office as a result of the Staines killing, is displaying an amazing flaccidity in his response to the situation.

The issue has been treated oddly right from Justice Wadhwa8217;s investigation into the Dara Singh case, which could not establish the accused8217;s association with the Bajrang Dal. Very naturally, too, since Justice Wadhwa seems to have been looking for very hard evidence, of the nature of a membership card or a subscription bill. It is common knowledge that apart from some Left parties, no political organisation insists upon formal membership. It was, therefore, futile to look for it. The enquiry conducted by D.R. Karthikeyan of the National Human Rights Commission, on the other hand, found ample circumstantial evidence of Dara Singh8217;s political affiliation. He explicitly said that usable evidence would proceed only from the interrogation of Dara Singh. This is a fact that should have been equally obvious to Gamang8217;sadministration, so it is mystifying why there had to be another killing before it would put 200 policemen on Dara Singh8217;s trail. And it remains to be seen how many more will occur before the man is actually brought to book.

There is a tremendous danger in further delay, especially in the poll season. Religious violence tends to spread indiscriminately, assuming a force and validity of its own. Already, there has been an attack on a Christian priest in Varanasi which bears some resemblance to those in Orissa. As usual, the motive has been ascribed to personal enmity. Here, too, the administration ought to have appreciated the fact that the motive is less important than the method. It is the ritual character of the latter that people could fix upon, to settle personal scores of their own. And so the trail of death would continue. One sign of the danger that may lie ahead is the comparison that is being drawn between Dara Singh and Veerappan. The two, of course, do not bear comparison. For all his ills, thelatter would never stoop to the level of macabre murder dictated by a religious agenda.