VHP leader Praveen Togadia banned to enter Kandhamal

BHUBANESHWAR: The Kandhamal district administration in Odisha still seems to consider firebrand Vishva Hindu Parishad leader Praveen Togadia a law and order risk, seven years after communal riots led to the death of 38 people in the district.

The administration on Friday barred Togadia from entering Kandhamal for a rally planned to mark by the golden jubilee celebrations of the outfit. Togadia has been addressing meetings in various Odisha towns for the past few days.

VHP has called a 12-hour Kandhamal shutdown in protest.

VHP could carry on with its programme, but minus Togadia, district collector N Thirumal Naik told ET.

“An assessment of law and order situation and intelligence reports have led us to decide against allowing Togadia's entry to the district,” said police superintendent KB Singh. Security is being strengthened and orders prohibiting people from gathering will apply for the next seven days, he said.

Kandhamal has watched with great nervousness campaigns such as ‘ Ghar Wapsi’ carried out by right wing groups like VHP. The Christian community, Odisha’s largest minority, believes the tribal belt is a vulnerable target.

A similar apprehension, that tribes were vulnerable to conversion, discussed at a Puri meeting of the VHP in 1968, had led one of its pracharaks, Laxmanand Swarswati, to head out to the remote Kandhamal. Ghar Wapsi rituals were carried out here as early as the late 1980s.

His campaign against the district’s churches and cow slaughter led to frequent clashes between communities. On August 23, 2008, Saraswati and three others were killed, allegedly by Naxals. In the riots that followed, 38 people were killed. Back then too, Togadia had been banned from stepping into the district.