2 murders in 3 days leave people scared in Orissa's Kendrapara town

Two murders in three days in public places over gang rivalry in Kendrapara has left people of this coastal town and its adjoining areas panicky.

Despite additional deployment of policemen, the people remained scared as attendance in schools and number of buyers in markets have thinned.

Since the past one week, the town was reeling under lawlessness, as murders, throwing of bombs and shootout took place in public places virtually throwing life out of gear.

Two associates of rival gangs have been gunned down in past three days. One murder on Saturday was followed by a retaliatory killing on Tuesday night, the police said.

Business transaction was affected as buyers from muffusil areas, who depend on the urban market, have stopped venturing into the town out of fear, a prominent businessman said.

A senior district official said there has been a drastic drop in the attendance of in schools.

"There has been additional deployment of three platoons of armed police at strategic locations. We are trying to bring normalcy in the situation, so that people regain faith in the force", said a police official.

The Communist Party of India-Marxists (CPI-M), however, alleged that gangsters active in Kendrapara and adjacent areas were being patronised by the police and ruling party politicians. Claiming that the policemen, barring a few exceptions, were on the pay-roll of gangsters, CPI-M Kendrapara district secretary Umesh Singh demanded complete overhauling of the civil and the police administrative set-up in district which is also communally sensitive.

Our party cadres have information on criminal-police nexus, Singh claimed and alleged that the tender-fixing scandal had brought under sharp focus the unholy alliance of politicians and criminals in the wake of the 2005 murder of contractor Pradip Parida.

Probe into the tender fixing business has been shelved to protect the politicians involved, he alleged.