The communal violence in Kandhmal in the aftermath of the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his disciples, has so far claimed 26 lives, Orissa Home Secretary Tarun Kanti Mishra said in Bhubhaneshwar on Monday.
Three battalions of the Border Security Force comprising more than 3,000 personnel will move across the border from Odisha to Chhattisgarh and an equal number of Indo-Tibetan Border Police units will further move into the Naxal stronghold of Abujhmad as part of a strategy to intensify anti-Maoist operations in their last bastions, official sources said.
RSS leader Dhanu Pradhan, who was said to be on the Maoists' hitlist, was gunned down by three suspected extremists at Kumarigaon village under Brahmanigaon police station area in Kandhamal at around 1300 hrs, sources said.
Nearly 40 days after violence erupted in Kandhamal district following the assassination of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmananda Saraswati, the judicial commission on Friday began inquiry into the incidents, official sources said.
Prohibitory orders were on Sunday clamped in communally-sensitive Kandhmal district and security tightened across Orissa after the killing of a prominent Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and his five associates sparked protests in the state with a prayer house being torched.
Four leaders of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad were killed in a Naxal attack at Tumribandha in Kandhamal district of Orissa on Saturday night.
The security forces nabbed two ultras after intensifying combing operation on the sixth day today, flushing out the Naxals hiding in various jungles in the borders of Kandhmal and Ganjam, after the mayhem. Sources said that Mahipur outpost constable Chintamani Sahu, who was admitted along with seven others at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, succumbed to the injuries on Wednesday night.
Parliament was adjourned on Monday morning after condoling the death of 3 sitting members, including former Union minister Murli Deora.
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