Bhubaneswar: Odisha Governor Senayangba Chubatoshi Jamir on August 25 received an investigative book written by veteran journalist Anto Akkara.
The governor received the copy of “Who Killed Swami Laxmanananda?’ at his residence in Bhubaneswar, capital of Odisha, and then heard how seven Christians are serving life term in jail for a crime they had not committed. They were accused of killing Hindu religious leader Swami Laxmanananda on August 23, 2008, in his hermitage in Kandhamal.
Akkara, who has pursued Kandhamal’s travesty of justice for eight years with 23 trips to that district, in a letter urged the governor to ensure justice to the convicts, who he claimed were innocent.
“It is a blot on the Indian democracy and the judicial system that these innocent convicts have been languishing in jail for nearly eight years,” the author said. He urged the governor “to take up this cry of the oppressed with the concerned authorities.”
The governor assured the author to go through the book ‘carefully.’
The function took place as the Church in India observed the Kandhamal Day.
Kandhamal witnessed an unprecedented anti-Christian violence in 2008, immediately after the murder of the Hindu swami.
The seven convicts languishing in jail for nearly eight years are Duryodhan Sunamajhi, Munda Badamajhi, Sanatan Badamajhi, Garnatha Chalanseth, Bijay Kumar Samseth, Bhaskar Sunamajhi and Budhadeb Nayak.
Akkara is anchoring an online petition the release of the seven innocent Christian convicts at the website www.release7innocents.com launched in the presence of the illiterate wives of the convicts along with a host of dignitaries in early March in New Delhi.